When Brooklyn Assemb. Dov Hikind suggested this weekend that the NYPD use racial profiling to identify terrorists who might blow up the subways, the reaction was mostly predictable.
Many liberal leaders, including Democratic mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer, denounced the proposal as ineffective and un-American. Conservatives hailed his common sense.
But a handful of religious and political leaders acknowledged that Hikind, a Hasidic Jew, gave voice to sentiments shared by thousands of New Yorkers. And they suggested the old liberal-conservative divide about profiling was obsolete in an age when young men strapped bombs to their bodies and went out to wreak destruction on civilians.
"We have a right wing who tends to want to use power indiscriminately, and a left wing who considers any use of power bad," said Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in Manhattan. "So the vast majority of us in the middle feel unsafe."
Kula called for a third way to talk about profiling -- an approach that he said must transcend the potential abuses of power inherent in Hikind's proposal, as well as the left's unwillingness to face new dangers.
"Can we imagine a conversation -- ideally led by Muslims themselves -- on a new category in a post-Sept. 11 world called 'ethical racial profiling'?" he asked.
Kula said he doesn't know what such a system might look like, but believes New York could lead the nation in putting together such a policy.
But many religious and political leaders yesterday flatly rejected Hikind's proposals to use Middle Eastern profiles as "inappropriate and irresponsible."
"First of all, the very idea that one can spot a Muslim by looking at them is ridiculous," said Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid, leader of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in Harlem. "Muslims are of every ethnic group on earth. In the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, we saw attacks upon innocent people by ignorant bigots, who thought you could look at someone and tell their religion."
Leaders of the Straphangers Campaign said they had not even considered Hikind's proposal because they consider the newly instituted bag checks "a colossal waste of money," in the words of Neysa Pranger.
"The bottom line is they're going to have to put together a security strategy that includes a number of things -- chief among them, more bomb sniffing dogs, and having uniformed and undercover patrols," said Pranger, the group's coordinator.
Ferrer, Democratic candidate for mayor, dismissed Hikind's idea out of hand.
"Racial profiling is against the law in New York City and it's a law I helped draft," Ferrer said "There are better ways, and constitutional ways, to keep us safe."
In a brief statement, Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne called racial profiling "illegal, of doubtful effectiveness and against department policy."
Staff writer Dan Janison contributed to this story.
