Muslim Drivers Fired by Hertz

Hertz, a rental car company, suspended 34 Muslim drivers on September 30th.  It said these drivers were "abusing break times."  The drivers said they were praying, and held a protest with their union.  Hertz says the drivers are required to clock out for prayer time, and that the rule was agreed to 2 years ago; the union says that Hertz just recently started that rule, and that last year Hertz said Muslims did not have to clock out.

Last week, 8 of the drivers agreed to clock out for prayer time, and the other 26 were fired.  The union is upset and has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.  It will also file a complaint of religious discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Profiling in America

Profiling in America has become a huge mess.  On the one hand, you have people who think that it should be okay to profile someone because of their race or religion.  For example: subjecting young Muslim men to more scrutiny in regards to terrorism.  On the other hand, you have people who say it's counter-productive and unconstitutional.  I stand in the middle on this subject.  It does violate the US Constitution.  But does it work?

I worked with a former police officer, who told me about staking out the airport to look for people who had outstanding warrants.  They looked for a specific type of person with certain tattoos and manner of dress.  And they picked up a lot of people who had warrants that way.  The problem comes in when you stop looking at tattoos or clothes, which can be chosen, and look at skin color or religion.  If you want to profile a gang member in some areas, it may be a young black man wearing certain colors or types of clothes.  In other areas it may be Hispanic men.  And that is considered racial profiling.  And it's illegal.  If you want to profile a terrorist, it's probably young Muslim men, with brown skin.  And that is also racial/religious profiling.

The Constitution guarantees equality for all men, but sometimes that's not how it really works out.  If you're a young black man in baggy pants, there are people who will automatically think you're in a gang or selling drugs.  Even if you're really just a student.  If you have brown skin and a name like Muhammad, there are people who think you're a terrorist or at the very least trying to impose Sharia law on Americans.

Slate has a very interesting article on the subject of profiling terrorists.  It seems as though the American Muslims most likely to lean towards terrorism are actually black.  So what does this do to the profiling situation?  In 2008 Juan Cole wrote a very good article about how profiling actually doesn't work.  He also mentions several of the supposed terror plots that were not really terror plots, but got hyped up by profiling.

So where does this leave us?  How do we reconcile our belief in civil liberties, with our need for safety and security?  Does it make sense to have actual computerized random searches at the airports, when guards end up searching 5-year-olds, or Amish women, when you're looking for Muslim terrorists?  In my mind, it doesn't.  But I don't like the alternative of just searching Muslims either.  Surely there is some kind of middle ground where we don't violate people's rights just because of their skin color or religion?  Because it's hard enough to be a Muslim in America these days. 

Turkish Government Returns Property

In 1936, the Turkish government issued a proclamation that ended up with the government claiming property that belonged to minority foundations in Turkey.  Now the government is returning property that was "registered as public or foundation property."  Any foundations that lost property have 12 months to apply for a return of their property.  According to the article:

Some of the property set to be returned to Armenian, Greek and Syriac foundations include schools, churches, stores, hundreds of houses, buildings and apartments, cemeteries, factories, and even nightclubs.

I think this is definitely a step in the right direction.  Addressing past wrongs will only help Turkey's future.

Who is a rapist?

A reader sent this article to me from FireDogLake (h/t Lenin's Tomb too). An Israeli man had sex with an Israeli woman, but now he's being prosecuted as a rapist. Why? Because he is an Arab. Apparently, if an Arab Israeli man has sex with a Jewish Israeli woman, and does not tell her that he is an Arab, it's considered rape.

Now, FDL and Lenin's Tomb are couching this in terms of oppression, but that is not the entire story. The judge was following precedents. In the past, men who lied about themselves could be convicted of fraud. In 2007 or 2008, a Jewish man was convicted of rape, because he pretended to be a housing official who could help women get better housing. Instead of fraud, he was convicted of rape by deception. And that is what is happening to the Arab man in question. And that is why some jurists are concerned that these are both dangerous precedents. In the United States, no one would think twice if a man trying to pick up a woman lied about being married or his job. But that is now a jailable offense in Israel. See the Guardian article too.