Stereotypes and young Arab men in airline queues

It is almost certainly true that there are non-spurious generalisations to be made about the likelihood of certain types of passengers posing a threat to airline security, on the basis of age, gender and ethnic background – arguably the likeliest terrorists are young males of Middle Eastern origin. But it does not follow that young males of Middle Eastern origin should be singled out as a general rule for special attention from security officers who are using their 'individual discretion' in a sloppy generalised way.

For instance, when the Al Gore committee did was to pander to the  sloppy idealisation of individual discretion. To argue, as the Gore Commission did when it considered the question of racial profiling in the USA, that considerations of risk must never be based on ‘stereotypes or generalisations’ demonstrably shows how limited their thinking skills were. How did they, the Gore committee  think that you could make risk assessments in the absence of stereotypes and generalisations?   I know, save us from politicians.

 One good reason for rejecting even non-spurious racial profiling is that certain forms of discrimination can be stigmatising and counterproductive.  For instance young Arab men pulled out of airline queues are likely to suffer from such attention.  But they are not suffering more because they are being stereotyped nor are they suffering more because it is a spurious stereotype (it is not). They are suffering because the stereotype is already widespread, and doesn’t need institutional reinforcement.

Rather, it needs to be compensated for.