Though William says that he is afraid of flying for reasons other than hijackers, it seems as though that is not actually the case. In fact, William does racially profile people who remind him of what he thinks fundamentalist hijackers would look like. In this story, William represents the perspective of an average American who thinks that he has no hand in the phenomenon of racial profiling, although he is one of the many Americans who are helping it live on, even if he himself is also a victim of profiling.