my brother the terrorist

my brother and his fiancee applied for passports just before their wedding and now it appears as if my brother is a victim of racial profiling.

so a lot of my family doesnt fit the typical black look whatever that means (maybe a little more racial mixing and more recently so than most black americans) and he was sporting a beard in his passport photo which didnt help matters. and so when they sent his wife her passport they sent my brother a huge packet asking for all this background information (school and health records and maiden names of mom and grandparents and their social security numbers etc) on him and his immediate family, that includes me. i guess his picture (when they showed pictures of america`s most wanted arabians after 9/11 i couldnt help noticing that a couple of them looked like they could belong to my family) combined with the fact that he attended an aviation tech school in philly a couple of years ago, created some suspicion from the government. and of course he is gathering all the requested information because if he doesnt then who knows what this military government will do. they still havent returned his passport application including his birth certificate. some family members are jokingly calling him saudi but it`s hardly a laughing matter especially since stuff like this is happening more often than you think. he already faces discrimination being a young, urban, black man in america and now this.

i understand why there are so many people fed up with the u.s. and after bush`s reelection a lot more people thinking about becoming expats. atleast for my sake the japanese still love all things american otherwise id seriously think about claiming a different country when strangers ask where im from.