My oldest is in the Navy. He's very dark. My youngest is red headed. When he's home, he doesn't get waved thru check points and the one time he was with his brother, following us in his truck, he was pulled over and searched. It's just the way it is. Something about him, gets a second look (maybe because he's so handsome, huh?:') Anyway, the two of them together just wasn't their norm and flags went up. Just the way it is.
I'm white --I could have been in the Von Trap Family (of Sount of Music fame), but it's true that because I look very athletic I get stopped and checked all the time.
I have no tattoos, piercings, hippy clothes, no long hair....
I have a friend who was born in Lebanon, is Christian and does a lot of air travel on her job.
She constantly gets pulled out of line, and laughs about it.
During her first flight after 9-11, there was a Middle-Eastern man on the flight with her, and she said she and her boss "watched him like a hawk" for the whole flight.
For the most part he takes it well. It tends to get worse in the summer because he works construction on off days, and gets dark. He laughed when the dry cleaner told him that he wouldn't clean any Muslim clothes, mostly because they were my clothes not his, and because there is a dry cleaner on every corner.
His point has always been that there is a difference between being vigilant and being hysterical. Assuming every dark skinned man is a Muslim terrorist falls into the latter category. I wish I had greater confidence in passengers being able to tell the difference.