Post-9/11 panel discusses ethnic minority stereotyping

A few weeks ago, I was invited to be a part of the Department of Homeland Security’s “Roundtable on Security and Liberty: Perspectives of Young Leaders Post-9/11.”

Despite its deceptively complex name, the event simply consisted of six panels questioning young members of Middle Eastern, Sikh, Muslim and other “relevant” ethnic and religious communities. As a non-Muslim Iranian American, I was a minority among minorities.

Regardless, I drove to the event with a different view of the department than the one I returned with.

Like many skeptics, I imagined a bureaucratic mess of a building emblazoned with “Department of Homeland Security” at the top in daunting lettering. Flowing in and out of the building would be a mix of dashed hopes, separated families and otherwise tarnished lives ““ all at the hand of the countless, dastardly unfeeling arms of government officials, minions in Secretary Director Michael Chertoff’s convoluted plans.

Wherever that building is, incidentally, it is not on USC’s campus.

Instead, I encountered a far different department.

I returned to the sunnier side of Los Angeles with a more nuanced view of the issues facing the government today.

Granted, the event was hosted by the Department’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (as opposed to immigration services, for example). Still, it’s a good sign that a mega-governmental organization is willing to talk to the community on such a small level.

For example, numerous complaints were raised regarding the denial of visas to Muslim scholars who had been offered various speaking engagements throughout the country. The Middle Eastern community was, frankly, disgusted that a nation as hell-bent on free speech was so seemingly ignorant of international viewpoints.

David Gersten, the director of programs for the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, addressed the issue with tact and honesty, explaining that it is a problem of consequence.

When a visa application screener is looking at an application, there is very little for him or her to gain by allowing some speaker he or she has never heard of into the country. But post-Sept. 11, there is a huge downside to allowing someone who may be a threat into it.

Granted, identifying “the threat” is the problem ““ security is always, at its most base level, an attempt at perception and inference.

As much as I hate to admit it, and as wrong as it is, it has become far easier for the government and the majority of Americans to infer a threat from a person from my own ethnic community than one from a Kansas farm.

Of course, that does not make prejudice, profiling or any other attempts at grouping cultures into categories of “safe” or “dangerous” any more correct, or accurate.

The (hopefully obvious) reason that such methods are not effective is that the threat is not exclusively Muslim, Middle Eastern, bearded, “turban-wearing,” etc, etc.

At least as early as September 2007, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell voiced concerns about home-grown American “sleeper cells” of would-be terrorists.

So while the Department of Homeland Security is at least partly to blame for propagating some of these stereotypical conventions of what constitutes a “threat” to America, it is not accurate to say that it does not try to patch up its own mistakes.

For example, the department issued a memo to all federal agencies that contained suggestions about putting together roundtable discussions, such as the one I attended. The most promising of these suggestions were community-originated terms that the government should use when referring to the international terrorist network (i.e., “Religious extremists” as opposed to “Islamic terrorists”).

The panelists that interviewed us ranged from religious leaders to government officials. Their questions were pointed and honest, testaments to the environment the DHS created in its attempt at engaging the up-and-coming generation of Middle Eastern Americans.

One panelist pointedly remarked that only inviting members of the Middle Eastern community to such roundtables suggests that either we are more susceptible to violence, extremism and other criminal activity, or that we should have a better idea at what our counterparts in extremist organizations are thinking ““ two blatant falsehoods.

It was in this spirit that I recommended, in my comments to Secretary Director Chertoff, that such events feature Americans of all ethnic backgrounds.

It is faulty to assume that the problems in our communities only affect Middle Eastern Americans.

After all, many have noted that America, in its darkest hour, missed an opportunity to engage in substantive dialogue about how our differences in culture and religious belief should not translate to strata of “Americanism” or patriotism (instead, our highest leaders told us to go shopping, or to go on a trip).

Looking to the future, let us hope that governmental institutions help foster an environment of unity in light of ““ not in spite of ““ our supposed differences.

E-mail Makarechi at kmakarechi@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.

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