Racial profiling or not? - who cares!

Submitted by Farzad (United Arab Emirates), Feb 18, 2003 at 02:31

I am an Iranian living in the UAE, a very small Arab country in the in the ME in case someone did not know.

I went to college in the US, and travelling/visas were always a hassle for me; I always received a single entry visa, I had to go through extra security procedures, etc; etc.

Not once did I ever view these as racial profiling. Those people were just doing their job, and the least I could do is to not whine and slow them down.

Sometimes maybe an immigration officer would tick me off a little bit, like this one guy made me go back to the end of the queue (about 70-80 people) in the airport beacuse I did not fill out a form. He had the forms with him, but he told me; 'because you are an Iranian, I will make you go to the back of the line'. I just smiled and went to the back of the line. So he was jerk, big deal, I know plenty of jerks over here.

I just followed the procedures, didn't break the law and it's the best damn education that I received. I got a job after I graduated, but I could not work because of a certain regulation not allowing Iranians to work in high-tech industries. I had to leave the US, though I always wonder what my life would have been like had I stayed on.

I understand that these happened because I was simply Iranian, but I have no grudge against the US ot its people. It is just the side-effects of politics. That's it. When I was in the US, I felt the kind of freedom, that I will guarantee no other country on the face of this earth can offer. And I was there during the some bad times too. US shooting down of Iranian airliner, first gulf war, first trade centre bombing, whatever.......

The racial profiling argument are for those people who want to highjack the issue and than talk about other problems, like Israel/palestine, war on Irag, etc. It's just a starting point to whine about other stuff.

My message to those people is; why don't you spend your time reforming the regimes of your home countries that have given you such a bad name, than blaming the country (who has given you shelter/opportuntiy that you would never have in your home country), for protecting themselves and YOU.

What the hell are you guys thinking. Should the US protect itself with its hands tied behind its back?

Tell me something, if you had a bug problem in your house and you saw cockroaches crawling out of the basement, what would you do, go look into the back yard?

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