Justified Racism

[sobrique]

Are we ever justified in discriminating based upon race or religion?

It's a question that's raised recently. I think there's no real argument that racial discrimination is generally held to be a bad thing.

However, if we assume that all suicide bombers are from the same ethnic grouping (I'm not certain they are mind, although certainly a majority are). Is it unreasonable to ban everyone in that grouping from an action? e.g. travelling on a tube.

Is it unreasonable to pay more attention to people in that ethnic group, if they're carrying a large bag?

Is colour blindness really a virtue when the only people who are trying to kill you happen to be green?

Comments

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

But when you're discriminating on someone on the basis of their race, it becomes much easier to cut away 'liberties'.

It's a fairly short step from 'arabic people are suicide bombers' to 'no coloured people on public transport'.

[paulw.livejournal.com]

Why waste resource searching granny smith when you know she is in a very very low risk group. Its all about risks and profiles, unfortunatly thats the real world and the real situation the police are in.

I certainly don't want another bomb to go off because the police were too busy being politically correct.

Your example of not allowing coloured people on public transport is absurd. No one has suggested that nor will they.

My example is customs at airports. They direct resource at high risk flights and they do a good job. Should we say that flights from that country are not allowed. No, we're not. We just need to manage the high risk groups.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

So you'd say it's not racism so much as 'direction of resources'? Especially WRT to the recent police getting heavy on 'arabic looking' types, in light of the recent bombings?

[paulw.livejournal.com]

Yes, you target the high risk groups. This is a new threat and realisticly the only way to stop suicide bombers is to either shoot them before they can set the bomb off or to target people who fit the current profile and conduct random searches.

If 80 year old women start bombing London I'm sure police will stop them if they look menacing and are carring a large bag.