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Reflection Paper

Decent Essays

“Sir, move to the side.” “Sir, we’d like you to step outside you car so we can search your car.” My whole life, these types of questions have been asked my family and me multiple times. At first I thought, maybe, the TSA were just doing their jobs. But, I quickly began to realize that I was the only one in the line where people boarding planes were double checked and patted down. At security checkpoints in New York, where I was asked to step outside my car, so a dog could sniff for a bomb. I almost became used to the discrimination. In my own case, I’m South Asian and I was being racially profiled in public, discriminated against at school, and even bullied because of what extremist events had persuaded people to believe. Of course, when you see or meet someone, you automatically take notice of his or her personality or their race. So, when I stepped out in public with my traditional clothes, a shalwar kameez, people looked at me different. I wasn’t surprised because no one had seen these types of clothes. However, I noticed all the dirty looks I was receiving from people I didn’t even know. Even one shopper asked me why I wore those types of clothing and that I looked like a typical, “Towel head.” At certain stores, some employees wouldn’t check out my family and I just because we were “not American”, according to the employee. Many bystanders, acted like they didn’t hear what the employee said. Days like September 11, the infamous attack on the World Trade Centers,

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