In 2004, Steven J. Parr plotted to blow up the Reuss Federal Plaza in downtown Milwaukee.

Given the similarity of Parr's plot with other notable acts of domestic terrorism, the public reacted with rage; a sizeable faction of Americans admitted that necessary steps needed to be taken, especially at federal buildings, to thwart future terrorist actions.

The plan was simple: Given the stature of previous plotters and attackers, the necessary measure required that all white males entering federal plazas in the U.S. would be extensively profiled.

Of course, this response never occurred. In fact, if all white males entering government buildings were surveyed because of the correlation between "white males" and "bombing federal buildings," it would seem that government business would be slowed, because the measure demands an impossible scope.

Racial profiling, in this case, is absurd.

In Joseph Kastner's recent Viewpoint, racial and religious profiling is not considered absurd. Practitioners of Islam, particularly males, should be profiled at airports because of the correlation between "Muslim males" and "terrorist acts involving airports and/or airplanes."

The problem is, it is not Muslim males who commit acts of terrorism involving airports any more than it is white males who commit acts of terrorism involving federal buildings.

What Kastner is implicating is that a general category ("Muslim males") be employed to characterize very specific activities ("terrorist acts involving airports and/or airplanes").

I don't think Kastner means to indict an entire religion for being guilty of practicing that religion, any more than he would want to indict an entire race for being guilty of, well, being of that race.

I suspect that what Kastner means by "religious" profiling amounts to racial/ethnic profiling. If I told Kastner, here an airport guard, that I, a white American male, were a Muslim, would he keep me in the line? I strongly suspect that by "Muslim male," Kastner actually means "Arab, Muslim male."

Terrorists are specific, political subjects, striking in a singular fashion — they are not nations, states, races, religions, ethnicities. We should not treat them as such.

Zettel is a graduate student in the College of Arts & Sciences.