Arrest of “Jihad Jane” Adds Fuel to Fight Against Racial Profiling
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Leonard Pitts is an excellent columnist. He recently wrote a piece about Colleen LaRose, the Pennsylvania housewife turned Islamic jihadist, whose arrest made it abundantly clear why airport security is not only necessary but essential. Whether conscious or not, most Americans believe “terrorists” can be easily profiled by their physical appearance,” unusual” accents, the clothes they wear, or the facial hair they sport. “Terrorists” are not white, blond, and mainstream in dress and mannerisms. American media has convinced us that real terrorists are either bearded Arabs or dark-skinned Africans who dress like Muslims.
If Timothy McVeigh taught us anything, it should be that individuals willing to inflict mass casualties on Americans in the name of “government opposition” come in all sizes, stripes, and colors. The arrest of LaRose, dubbed “Jihad Jane” by either the media or law enforcement officials, reinforces the McVeigh lesson. A blond, green-eyed former Texas teenager, LaRose would not have triggered much, if any, interest from fellow passengers had she boarded an airliner for any destination in America with bomb-making material concealed somewhere on her body or in her possessions.
Collen LaRose and her counterpart, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez who was arrested several days after LaRose in connection with an international terror plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who offended many Muslims world-wide with his cartoons, are the very reason why all Americans must undergo strict security checks and monitoring before boarding airliners in this country and why there should be no “profile” for terrorists. As Mr. Pitts wrote in his column:
“[The LaRose arrest] ought to serve as a rebuke to the guy standing in the airport security line grumbling at how the TSA agent is running his wand over some dewy-eyed grandmother who obviously isn’t a threat. Even more, it should rebuke pundits like Cal Thomas, Ann Coulter, and Kathleen Parker, who, in the wake of 9/11 argued for ethnic profiling in airport security. Pat down swarthy, bearded young men with Middle Eastern accents and exotic headgear, they said, and leave the rest of us alone.
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