> Are you trying to find out if racism exists? In my personal experience, > it certainly does. What you get at an airport is a double whammy of > racism conflated with xenophobia.
Yeah, plus Islamophobia. Note that if there had been a reliable (visual) way to ascertain if you were Muslim or not, you would probably not have been hassled at all at airports. The point being that although there is certainly racism & xenophobia, much of it is being unleashed and fueled by Islamophobia. > I've been searched a few times in the US even as rough looking white > trash walked by unchecked. I've also seen white trash being given more > than a cursory wand wave at Indian airports. I've been asked to produce I think the counter-argument that would be used against this point, is to say that rough looking white trash are not trying to blow up planes, and hence are not a security threat. (I'm no fan of profiling at airports - apart from civil rights and moral implications, I think it just doesn't work. But by the same token, just because some guy is working-class and white, doesn't mean he's going to automatically get drunk and start a fight on the plane, or whatever). And experiences vary so much. I have never ever been hassled at an airport anywhere, despite being bang in the middle of every racial profiling target group (except for not being Muslim, but they can't know that by looking at me) since I'm 20s, brown, and often travelling alone with hand luggage only. (I got a couple of funny looks from passengers at Heathrow last week, for the first time ever..but even that was passengers not the authorities). I flew into the US many times, including 2 weeks after 9/11. A whole bunch of airports in Europe, the US and Africa too. Pulled out for a special check at Oakland airport, *once*. They were very polite and judging by the other people pulled out, the checking appeared to really be random. I also drove (alone) through large parts of Tennessee, North & South Carolina, Ohio and the Virginias last year, right during the massive frenzy created by the July 7 London bombings. Absolutely nothing happened..if anything, everyone was really, really warm and friendly (more than New York for sure). Sometimes, being the only non-white person in a roadside diner and sticking out like a sore thumb felt pretty funny, but (barring one place in Tennessee where I got a couple of funny looks) I never felt any bad vibes. I've never felt any racist vibes in my other travels either..certainly nothing explicit. One or two incidents in shops where the salesperson was a bit snooty (that may or may not have been racist) are about the worst of it - even then (fancy clothes shop on Regent Street in London), the salesperson become very friendly very fast, when he realized that I was actually serious about buying despite the unshaven, tracksuit look. Oh yeah, and the Tube in London felt very awkward and high-tension after the July 7 bombings - there were some definite negative vibes there. But that cleared up within a few weeks. I don't actually disagree with you - there is certainly plenty of racism and xenophobia going around (and Indians are very far from perfect in that regard). But a lot of it is just perception..if someone (not saying you do it, Cheeni) believes there is racism everywhere, then they *will* see racism everywhere..but you can't interpret every negative action as racism or xenophobia..sometimes people are nasty because they are nasty people or for some other reason..not necessarily racist.
