Security, race, bigotry, and America’s direction
James Fallows has a post that I hope you’ll read. It begins:
In three previous installments – first, second, and third – readers have discussed the implications of a recent case in which a Boston-area musician, Vance Gilbert, caused an airline crew to panic and abort the departure of a plane. Gilbert is black. How much difference did that make?
This is newly on my mind because, when starting on the first leg of a long overseas trip today, I had the most unpleasant encounter in years with TSA officialdom, at Dulles Airport. (I am now at LAX, waiting for the connecting flight.TSA Officer Z*** of Dulles, I will remember you!) This encounter was a reminder that regardless of race, getting crosswise of security-officialdom can lead to a lot of trouble. It was also a reminder that asking “Why?” or “What is the reason for that?” to a uniformed official of the wrong temperament can be the first step down a path that is difficult to retrace. (This is probably the place to say: earlier this week I had an encounter with the DC police, after a neighborhood incident, that impressed me in a strong and positive way with the judgment, tact, and training of the squad that responded. Officer L. Myers, I will remember and be grateful to you.)
More about that later. For now, commentary from some readers on the interactions between long-standing problems of race and more recent security-state thinking. These messages are long but if you read them I think you’ll see why I’m quoting them in full. The first is from a reader in Washington DC: . . .
