Saturday, August 06, 2005

Don't Spare My Feelings, Please Profile Me!!!

Profiling - thanks to the situation we find ourselves in, for people with my first name or anything remotely as suggestive, the word profiling has developed an extraordinary meaning and import. Blah, blah, blah....I know, you've heard it all before.
Let me tell u what I think....

My wife and I were just talking and somehow the conversation meandered around to the lawsuit over the issue of profiling in NYC subways, that as a response the 7/7 London Bombings, is now practiced throughout the city's transportation network. There she was, in her beautiful 'I graduated cum magna something or other from law school' way, explaining to me how it was a bad thing that now the cops have been shown the green light to practice discrimination. I kid u not, my face cringed a little and felt obliged to say that I would hope those guys were discriminate in their work. I would have known to just at least check out the guys who are alleged to have carried out the 7/7 attacks. What can I say...I just know what to look for as would many other men and women who are from the region. Not that the 7/7 guys were MidEastern, because they were not. But someone from the general vicinity would just know that a South Asian is just as likely to be a nutjob as is some dude from camel jockey country. It's just a fact of life. Anyway, that's what I said to my wife. For my die-hard friends of the infallible Constitution fan club, "look.... eerr.....the Constitution...it's the most beautiful set of words in any language that I have ever come across - - but it's meaning is rooted in the fact that we are country of laws where the rule of law prevails (for the most part) - - if a cataclysm, the kind of which the response in NYC is intended to prevent were to occur, then, in all likelihood, the Constitution will, regretfully be swept aside. What will it be replaced with? I dread the thought....but the point is the Constitution, as sacrosanct as it most certainly is, is not suited to being measured strictly in the world of lofty ideals and principles of good governance. It must, to be both practical as it is ideologically inspirational, be examined through both lenses. Aware of this fact, I say don't spare my feelings, please profile me!!! You had better be discriminating or else I fear it will all be for naught. There has to be a civil society for the Constitution to remain relevant. Let the historians be polite and the leadership be brave.