{"id":6068,"date":"2010-01-06T19:55:25","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T00:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=6068"},"modified":"2010-01-07T12:02:09","modified_gmt":"2010-01-07T17:02:09","slug":"with_news_that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/06\/with_news_that\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying While Brown Deja Vu"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"airport-security-line.jpg\"<\/a>With news that the failed Nigerian underwear bomber<\/a> was an actual real threat, the international community is rumbling in rapid reactions. My plans of going to South Asia this next month went awry when just a couple of weeks ago India suddenly changed their visa regulations; all people holding a tourist visa to India now need to wait two months before re-entry, leaving many tourists who use India as a home base to travel around South Asia in flux. The reasoning given? American Headley’s support in the Mumbai bombing.<\/a> (FYI, rules changing daily on this, so keep updated if you will be traveling soon<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n

In addition to heightened visa security, the world is experiencing heightened airport security as well.<\/p>\n\n

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TSA is mandating that every individual flying into the U.S. from anywhere in the world traveling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening. The directive also increases the use of enhanced screening technologies and mandates threat-based and random screening for passengers on U.S. bound international flights.[tsa<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

I haven’t had to travel on an airline yet but have been following tweets of my world traveling friends and it seems that there is no consistency to airport security. I am quickly reminded of how in the post 9\/11 backlash racial profiling at airports were rampant and I needed to have a special phone call made each and every time I flew because I had the classic Muslim last name. It seems like the new TSA regulations are setting up racial profiling to be acceptable all over again.<\/p>\n\n

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According to information currently known about the new standards, all passengers traveling to the United States from 14 countries will be subject to heightened security screenings, including full-body pat-downs and luggage searches. These countries include Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

<<\/p>\n\n

p><\/p>\n\n

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The new standards will undoubtedly lead to the targeting of passengers from Muslim-majority countries. Rather than developing more effective policies that focus on behavior, the new standards categorically target individuals for additional scrutiny based upon ethnicity, religion, and country of origin. Moreover, the measures promote existing misperceptions about these communities as threats to security and harm the U.S. government’s reputation, both domestically and abroad, towards ensuring civil rights and equality.[saalt<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

The above two paras is a statement that was released this week and endorsed by a bevy of South Asian organizations such as Chhaya CDC<\/a>, Coney Island Avenue Project<\/a>, The Sikh Coalition<\/a>, and South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

I am also in complete support of the statement that was released. Nothing is going to be safer by the arbitrary special inspection of people from brown countries. It will only help to facilitate the profiling of brown people.<\/p>\n\n

What irritates me even more is that what happened on Flight 253 would have been preventable if the US Embassy in Nigeria would have followed up on the father’s warning. Obama is nominating a head to the TSA now<\/a>, but it taking him EIGHT months to nominate someone is more problematic to our airline security than any amount of Muslims flying. Though I realize racial profiling is the knee jerk reaction to a situation like the one on Christmas Day, I hope the South Asian community can signal to the White House and the international security people that what is really needed is better inter-governmental security communication and a real need for timely leadership. Flying while brown racial profiling is not the solution.<\/p>\n\n

Past Posts: Flying While Brown<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With news that the failed Nigerian underwear bomber was an actual real threat, the international community is rumbling in rapid reactions. My plans of going to South Asia this next month went awry when just a couple of weeks ago … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[47,30,2,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6068"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}