And Another Thing
I remember thinking Dov Hikind, a city councilman from Brooklyn, was a pretty much a jerk back when I lived in New York, and I must say I thought he was even more of a jerk when I read about his suggestion yesterday that the NYPD start using racial profiling in their subway searches.
"They all look a certain way," said Hikind... "It's all very nice to be politically correct here, but we're talking about terrorism."Now, all unsavory racial overtones aside, the last time I checked, the main visual element which differentiates Jews (although perhaps not the paler Eastern Europeans in his district) from Arabs is their clothes. (That is, without giving every Joe Transit Cop an advanced course in ethnic physiognomy.)
So in a mostly secular city like New York, following his suggestion would cause officers to go after anyone from Greeks to Italians to Gypsies to Sephardic Jews, with most likely another unfortunate emphasis on the oft-misidentified Sikhs who commit the supreme offense of wearing turbans. Most relevantly, is Dov not familiar with the suicide bombers in Israel who've slapped on a black suit and some tefillin and managed to avoid detection?
Therefore, to help New York's finest sort it all out, we present the following handy guide, suitable for printing and laminating:
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