Comments | jrittenhouse: Racial Profiling, of sorts:

jrittenhouse

Racial Profiling, of sorts:

Sep 28, 2010 17:08

For those of you out in my reading audience who have kids who are obviously NOT your particular ethnicity (such as Mere for us) - have you ever had any problems with official ID checks, on the line of ‘this really your kid’, questioning their ‘real’ citizenship and family status, or worse? I’m talking about police pullovers on the road, checks at ( Read more... )

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Comments 7

kalimac September 28 2010, 23:13:38 UTC

It doesn't even have to be ethnicity. Some years ago, a man I know faced some challenges entering Canada without his wife but with his five-year-old daughter. She is his biological child but doesn't look like him (scrawny and russet) but more like her mother (blonde and rosy-cheeked). As he told me the story, the scrutiny included a lot of questions posed to the little girl: Is that really your father? Where's your mother?

jrittenhouse September 29 2010, 10:22:32 UTC

See my answer to Kay below.

kalimac September 29 2010, 15:05:31 UTC

As with Kay's, my friend's story predates 9/11. (It was 1988 or 89 iirc; so long ago that the little girl in the story is now doing her post-doc research. Something to look forward to regarding Mere.)

kayshapero September 29 2010, 00:37:08 UTC

Back in 1991, upon leaving Westercon 44, I nearly got stuck in Vancouver with my four year old daughter while my husband went back home to Los Angeles to get her birth certificate (she's our biological child). Leastwise back in those more innocent days the airport folks were free to notice that she obviously acted like our kid and let us through; these days we would probably have never gotten out of the US going north.

jrittenhouse September 29 2010, 10:21:47 UTC

Airport security is such a thoroughgoing PITA that we always take passports with, even if it's a domestic flight, to PROVE who we are and whatnot. Canadian border guys are through but polite, US border guys tend to be snots.

mbcrui September 29 2010, 23:37:48 UTC

Before 9/11, we took our daughter and our niece to Canada. No problems going *TO* Canada, but coming back we spent an uncomfortable hour trying to prove that our daughter was our daughter. My sister had given us a note in case of a medical emergency, but we had no official papers on Kate. Finally one of the customs officials noticed that Andy had a series of pictures in his wallet of her from when she was very young, onward, and took that as evidence ( ... )

mightyj September 30 2010, 13:30:34 UTC

In our current climate of child abductions, Amber alerts, and custodial disputes, I can understand law enforcement and border patrols wanting to be certain that the child traveling with you should be traveling with you. I can especially understand it when said child looks nothing like you or is of a different race.

I don't think this is racial profiling as much as it is an attempt to protect children from predators.