Terror in the Skies Again? Follow Up

I am going to be on an airplane headed to the nation's capitol, in less than a week. So forgive me for being hypocritical -- for not checking up on this issue beforehand, and checking up on it only now that I am flying. I thought Anne Jacobsen, from the WomensWallStreet.com, had ended her story with that one article. But the tale is far from over, and far from its happy ending; it gets more and more gruesome, which, unfornately for yours truly, is bad news.

Jeanne M. Elliott, Security Coordinator for the Professional Flight Attendants Association (PFAA), which represents the flight attendants of Northwest Airlines, said, "By the uneducated eye, and to those who don't walk in our shoes, it may have been perceived that we were doing nothing, when indeed we were putting the safety and security of those passengers as our first priority."

In a letter sent to WWS, she also states, "...the needs of this nation's flight attendants to adequately perform aviation security functions have been delayed and/or ignored."

This whole situation has become a five article series. There are just more and more questions and more confusion created. For once in my life, I can agree with that the saying, "ignorance is bliss" is right in this situation.

I am partial to life and living it. I want to live, because I have so much for which to live. I'm too young to die. I have a bright future ahead of me, and I would love to see it -- be in it. And because I don't want to die, it is going to make me a bigot. It is going to make me point fingers at people, and accuse them, not only before they are proven guilty, but even before they commit a crime. I always believe that there has got to be a good middle ground for all sides, but in the circumstances we face today, it seems like a distant end of the rainbow. There is no middle ground. You either do a preemptive strike, or you lose. You die.

Would I rather accuse innocent people and participate in racial profiling? Sure. I want to live. Pardon my bigotry; I happened to be biologically conditioned to survive, with an irrevocable will to live.

Now, there's that whole thing about imagining if you were in their shoes and whatnot. First of all, I believe that as a minority, we have to bend over backwards to accomodate for the majority. We do. If you are a tall, built, African American (is African American PC or is it Black now?), and you're dressed in the most recently fashionable hip hop attire with a little bling around your neck, don't walk by a cop with your right hand inside your jacket, looking like you're holding a gun! If you are a latino kid, who look fresh out of TJ, keep your hands to yourself and don't attract attention. As an Asian, I am just thankful that there are not too many violent stereotypical generalizations. At the worst, people fear that I would bust out my kung-fu moves and knock them dead with a mysterious martial arts move.

So if you are from the Middle East, or your parents were from the Middle East, don't attract negative attention to yourself; don't congregate with your like friends in front of the bathrooms on airplanes. Don't stand around and make people nervous -- don't talk in loud voices in your native language. Don't whisper and make signals to your friends. Keep to yourself.

Don't call me a racist bitch; I am speaking to y'all as a fellow minority. Perhaps a day should come when North Koreans are terrorizing the US, the same way Al Qaida has been. Perhaps Koreans and other Eastern Asians will be the victims of racial profiling. By all means, make me take off my shoes. I will open my toiletry kit and I will remove my cell phone battery for you. Yes, it is extremely unpleasant, and it is unfair to have me singled out and searched while waiting for my plane. But if my minor discomfort can provide assurance for fellow passengers -- if my small sacrifice will ensure them of a safe trip -- by all means, search me. Do not confuse that statement as an open door policy to commit acts of racism on me. You don't need to round me up in a ghetto (WW 2 anyone?) to feel safe. There are definite boundaries that I can accept, as a security measure, and a fine line divides it away from a violence against inalienable human rights.

I am a little nervous to fly. But I will get on that plane -- if it's the last thing I do. But I really don't wish it to be the last thing I do.