Tolerating Post 9/11 Racial Profiling: The Impact of Community Factors and Social Distance

• In Event: 300 - Section on Human Rights Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 04. Racial Profiling and Mass Incarceration

Abstract

The use of racial profiling in law enforcement has traditionally been condemned in the United States as a practice that not only runs counter to the constitutional principles of equal protection before the law, but also violates global norms on human rights. Yet after September 11, 2001, an executive promulgation from the Bush administration created a federal exception on the use of racial profiling “to defend and safeguard against threats to national security or the integrity of the Nation’s borders.” Along with this, post-9/11 public opinion polls have shown that most Americans are willing to sacrifice the civil rights of a particular group of people to win the “War on Terror.”
This paper seeks to uncover which factors influence the proclivity of American society to support or tolerate racial profiling – particularly of Muslim or Arab Americans in the United States – in the aftermath of 9/11. Given that the 9/11 attacks were a collective experience of tragedy, an examination at the community level is necessary. Using concepts of community affiliation and social distance (Bogardus 1947; Karakayali 2009), I hypothesize that a community’s predominant ethnic identification, the socioeconomic characteristics of a community, the extent of collective or community affectivity toward Muslim and Arab Americans, and the community’s proximity to the experience of and resulting threats from the 9/11 tragedy have significantly shaped social support for racial profiling vis-à-vis terrorism, even in the face of potential human rights violations.

Author

• Erika Mae Lorenzana Del Villar, University of Connecticut