Fear and paranoia continue to sweep the land. I suppose if you have nothing to hide it’s not a big deal though. The New York Daily News reports (thanks for the tip Brian):
New York was fear city yesterday as heavily armed police swarmed a double-decker bus packed with tourists in Times Square…
In a dramatic sign of the city’s edginess since the London transit bombings, cops evacuated buildings, shut midtown streets and forced about 60 terrified tourists to march off the double-decker bus, with their hands up, in the heart of Broadway.
Cops in riot gear handcuffed a group of apparently harmless South Asian-looking men with British accents after a jittery tour bus worker reported they seemed suspicious.
The men were forced to kneel on the sidewalk, with their hands bound behind their backs, between 50th and 51st Sts. in front of the Winter Garden theater on a sunny summer Sunday with the city packed with tourists.
Here is a checklist I have been working on for myself. Life runs more efficiently when you use checklists for everything I have found:
<
p>
1) Don’t sweat
2) Don’t carry a large bag
3) Conceal any accent of any kind
4) Read a newspaper (someone about to blow himself up probably wouldn’t be reading the news)
5) Do not pack your lunch in a plastic container
The five men in yesterday’s incident quickly were freed after cops determined they were tourists – not terrorists.
“We just want to clear our heads of the whole thing,” one of the men told the Daily News. “We were humiliated enough.”
“We just want to go,” added another.
Oh wait. I forgot the most ironic part:
“I was definitely frightened from the beginning,” said the driver, Mohammed Stout, 43, of the Bronx. “That’s human nature.”
6) Stay in Rhode Island
7) Fair and Lovely cream
Maybe it was just a typo.
it is ironic if the stereotype is based on a false selection of data. but it’s not. btw, note that pakistanis were involved in egypt….
You know, as ridiculous as this sounds, I would’ve been ok w/ them being questioned humanely if that’s what it took…but to pin them down on the ground at gunpoint in public, this is what’s wrong….I can see why ppl rail against random searches bcuz you can get this level of stupid response. still I maintain, if a cop wants to search your bag, let them. That’s not worth the fuss. But to those who are fighting to avoid these type of scenarios, fight on, bcuz this really sucks.
This crap happened all the time after 9/11, when Sikh guys got dragged off flights at any flight attendant’s whim.
I think the pertinent question is whether there was anything actually going on that would have triggered suspicion aside from race. All three articles I’ve seen on this so far have done a really $hitty job of looking into that (which you think might be important)–one mentioned stuffed pockets and backpacks, I think. Why can’t just one member of the the media just tell us what was going on instead of 16 quotes about how random people felt about it.
but to pin them down on the ground at gunpoint in public, this is what’s wrong….
Lovin, On one post you champion racial profiling. You ask people to develop a thick skin. You ask people to suck it up and not whine when they are racially profiled. Now you are upset. Make up your mind please.
Were they of Indian or Pakistani origin ?
Don’t stuff your pockets with maps and sightseeing brochures, or your tourist-trap bus driver may go apeshit:
Lovin, On one post you champion racial profiling. You ask people to develop a thick skin. You ask people to suck it up and not whine when they are racially profiled.
Al,
Pay attention, I never wrote to anyone to get thicker skin, that was someone else. I also wrote that people need to quit whining about BAG SEARCHES at the subway and that if you are selected to look at your bag, it is harmless and just do it and get on w/ your life. Get your quotes right first.
I never championed guns to the head, getting yanked off buses/planes etc. The only thing I said to suck up was the security check. After that, if they hassle you, they’re wrong. In this case, had they checked them quietly, and professionally prior to boarding, I could live w/ it even though it’s narrow minded and bigoted to do so based on race. I never championed humiliating anyone. Read first, then write.
Awww..Saurav. Don’t you know by now there doesn’t need to be anything actually going on?
I love the subheading of that piece: She survived a flight with 14 harmless Syrian musicians — then spread 3,000 bigoted and paranoid words across the Internet. As a pilot and an American, I’m appalled
Dammit. I should’ve known that SM got to that article first. 😉
Mohammed Stout – the surname does not sound Muslim, but corrections are welcome. Might be a black guy named Mohammed, which might also explain why he was unnerved by the tourists.
This was partially the reason behind my comment. In a lot of ways Pakistani and Indian Muslims are similar. And both the countries have an almost equally sizable Muslim population. But Indian Muslims by and large have refrained from terrorism. Even amongst the diasporic-Muslims, those of Pakistani descent often seem to be the perpetrators(the Daniel Pearl murderer, the London bombings, the Egypt bombings…). I wonder why this is so.
Well aware, thanks 🙂 But I’m recently trying to be conscious of the fact that sometimes there is something going on; hence, I want to know which it is in this case. That doesn’t change the structural issues (like random people reporting “suspicions” to the police, increased profiling, etc.), but the various incidents are more comprehensible to me in some circumstances than in others.
I feel real sorry for those chaps..It must have been embarassing as hell..This whole racial profiling thing is going to go on for a long time to come. We made some inroads after 9/11 but now we are back to square one. And to top it now – its ‘South Asian ‘ looking exclusively !
I don’t mind being searched, but how does one deal with the humiliation?? Someone got to do something about this.
Now what was the need to handcuff and make them kneel down on the sidewalk? Gees if they were to be suicide bombers would they not have blown themsleves up before they actually got off the bus, or the mintue they figured that the clever Mohammed Stout had been onto them.?
was at penn on sunday – to take the airtrain to the airport – was carryign a bigass duffel bag. went up to the cop to ask what’s going on – 🙂 he didnt/couldnt look me in the eye… but the irony… got hosed by a cabbie (a certain mr dilbag med#8G41 to get me to the airport)… so much for bhai-hood… yea I reported him later.
Now what was the need to handcuff and make them kneel on the sidewalk?
It’s standard police procedure for anyone considered a physical threat AND I suppose because there was more than one of them AND because once off the bus they could of ran, they needed to be restrained…
At the U.S.-Canada border (West), most South Asian men have the opportunity to get handcuffed as customs agents check their car; as the car is being searched, the men sit in plain view of everyone crossing the border…
At JFK, last year, a friend and I got “jumped” by six plainclothes officers while checking in at JetBlue; we were handcuffed, searched and laid out right in the middle of the terminal and everyone got a good look at our faces, which caused hell when we tried to get on the plane…
Who knows, the police have all sorts of reasons for humiliating people, sometimes I get the feeling they’d pull down a guy’s pants if they thought they could get away with it.
This reminds me of the idiocy of what I said this morning. My (brown) boyfriend took me to the train station to drop me off on the way to work, and as I was getting out of the car, I wanted to remind him to set off one of those things that fumigate? de-insect-ify? your house (we have a minor roach problem).
So what did I say to the bearded Indian as I get out of the car? “Don’t forget to bomb today, honey!”
Thirty seconds later, I realized what I had just said, and started looking frantically around for cops that might have overheard my massive blunder.
Oh, and:
As my father, a Detroit native, put it: it would be weird to be on a flight out of Detroit with no Arabs.
Last winter, a desi colleague of mine wanted to take his pregnant wife to a Broadway show. So they book tickets and show up. The moment they showed the tickets, a bunch of cops waiting for them pounce on them – do the whole pushing down on the pavement thing – even to the pregnant woman. After searching them, sniffer dogs and all, they let them go into the show.
Naturally, my friend thought like many folks on this board: desi, brown skinned, white cops, racist, discrimination, end of freedom etc etc etc.
Later I found out the real cause: This was their first broadway show and they did not know which ones were good. When he called ticketmaster, the conversation had gone something like this:
He: So what is the price for show A, show B. Ticket Clerk: $X and $Y. He: How about for show C? TC: That’s Z$. He: Z$! Wow! That must be a popular show! TC: Yes. He: Is it the best of all? Bet it will be crowded. TC:Yes. He: Good. I need to see a popular and famous show.
Little did he know that the moment he had uttered the words:”Is it crowded?”, he had been flagged as a risk. This was before he even uttered his name(and he has a pretty good American accent) or gave out his credit card info.
Obviously, it was his fault. That’s been my point in this conversation all along – these are different times. One word out of place will get you in trouble. No point playing the blame game. Just be careful. Is that too much to ask for?
M. Nam
Oh my God. Are you serious? This is the most Orwellian thing I’ve read in a day full of sheep-like postings. It was HIS fault that he asked, Is it crowded?
I mean, what other words would then be out of place? Like, if I yell at a friend to “quite shaking the beer, cause it’ll explode”?!
Maybe, say, if I’m shopping with a friend, and I tell her “that dress makes my thighs so fat, I want to kill myself”?!
Or, what if I call the MTA to check for schedule changes, and I ask customer service person, “so the 2 or the 3 will both get me to Times Square, during rush hour today?”??!
Stand up for something, man. Who brainwashed you, Ari Fleischer??
baaaaaaah.
no Saurav – “Four legs good, two legs bad!”
We must trust Dear Leader!
That made me laugh out loud.
Uh uh girlfriend, you look da bomb!
Cicatrix, You just reminded me of the lyrics to one of my favorite songs by US3:
Sheep
Walking, thinking, feeling, responding Uncovering and discovering new things about myself and this mad world around me Many philosophies, many tongues, many dialects and tones Different styles but wild is wild, calm is calm, but cool is mature Most cool cats are kids at heart Now there’s business along with the art A chef with words, a chef with herbs, a chef with vegetables, soy products and bean curd Some look at my face and say you’re quite absurd And I say why, ‘cos I’m not down with the herd?
Of the world I haven’t seen much, but with the mind I escape the ghetto’s clutch Loose cigarettes, ass bets on celo games, abandoned cars and colourful names on walls Suburb days were filled with sun rays and crooked cops who looked at me sideways Singin’ that same old song, where ya from, ‘cos round here you don’t belong Long strolls unravel my soul like a scroll telling many stories untold But some look at my face and say you’re quite absurd And I say why, ‘cos I’m not down with the herd?
I an’ I light up the sky, who be the sun, to stir up your adrenaline like African drums Status quo, no. Along with the grain, no. I got my own flow Similar to none, dangerous like itchy fingers on guns, yet graceful like swans But there’s a built in bomb Must defuse, must choose, right or wrong, win or lose Born to die, that’s why I ask why is it so hard to get a piece of the pie Some look at my face and say you’re quite absurd And I say why, ‘cos I’m not down with the herd?
they shoved his pregnant wife, eh? hmmm. well even if they had, guess she would have deserved it, too.
NY police manhandle Indian on Broadway
Aseem Chhabra in New York
For his second wedding anniversary Uday Menon wanted to take his wife out for dinner and a Broadway show on October 10.
He wanted to see The Producers, the hit Broadway musical based on Mel Brooks’ classic film and winner of 12 Tony awards. But the show was sold out until April 2002, and so Menon settled for a Cole Porter musical, Kiss Me Kate, winner of five Tony awards.
The plan was that Menon, a 46 year-old consultant with J P Morgan, and his wife Surekha Collur, a physician at a Brooklyn hospital, would go out to eat at Mirchi, a new Indian restaurant in Greenwich Village, and then make it in time to catch the show at the Martin Beck Theatre, at 45th Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue.
What Menon did not know was that, based on the suspicion of the Telecharge operator, the telephone service that sold him the tickets, there were four New York City police officers waiting at the theatre to nab him. When the couple arrived on the scene, the officers, fearing that Menon was a terrorist who was about to blow up the theatre, pounced on him, handcuffed him and dragged him into the street outside the theatre, while his seven-months pregnant wife watched in horror.
“The woman (the Telecharge operator) was very friendly,” Menon said, recalling his October 9 call to the agency. “I can’t remember anything strange or out of the ordinary in the conversation. She seemed to have all the time in the world.”
As Menon remembers, when he learnt that The Producers was sold out for the next several months, the Telecharge operator herself volunteered to read through a list of Broadway shows along with brief synopses for each event. When they settled on Kiss Me Kate, the operator first offered him $90 orchestra seats. Eventually Menon bought two $65 tickets in the mezzanine, which partially hangs over the orchestra.
The rest of the conversation between Menon and the operator would seem insignificant to anyone who has ever bought tickets on the phone. Menon inquired about the number of rows between his seats and the stage. He then gave his credit card number and the operator asked him for the expiry date as well as his mailing address.
“I never asked whether the theatre was going to be full, because I didn’t care about it,” Menon said. “All I wanted to know was whether the show was popular and whether the tickets were available. She finally said ‘Enjoy the show’ and told me that the tickets would be waiting for me the next day at the box office.”
On October 10, Menon and Collur reached the Martin Beck Theatre at 7.55pm. The lobby was empty as most people were already inside the auditorium for the 8pm show. While Collur got busy looking at the show posters and reading newspaper reviews, Menon walked up to the box-office window. When Menon gave his last name, the woman behind the window asked him to step aside. And within seconds the four officers, three of them in plain clothes, were all over Menon.
“Suddenly I felt my hands being grabbed from behind, my legs being grabbed and I think I was carried off the floor,” he said. He was then dragged about half a block away from the theatre towards Eighth Avenue.
“You feel really impotent,” Menon said about being handcuffed. “It didn’t hurt, but you can’t move your arms at all. You can’t do anything. It happened so fast. I kept asking them what the hell was going on? There were people gathered and they were watching.”
“My first thought when they grabbed me was this was some mistaken identity problem. I thought maybe I fit some terrorist’s profile. But at no point did I think that it had anything to do with my conversation on the previous day.”
To establish credibility with the officers, Menon mentioned that his wife was with him.
“So one of them mocked me and said: ‘Oh ya? And where is your wife’?”
Just then the visibly pregnant Collur came out of the theatre looking for her husband. And as the men frisked Menon and began to look through his wallet, Collur offered them her identity cards as well.
“By then they had realised that this was a big mistake, since I had nothing on me. But even at that point one of them threatened me in his Brooklyn accent and said: ‘Don’t get uppity with me now. I can put you away’.”
“The guy at the receiving end has to have some anger. I couldn’t be a saint. And they threatened to put me away.”
It was then that the officers told Menon that the Telecharge operator had reported him to the police. The operator’s report to the police said she believed that Menon did not care which play he saw, as long as it was a crowded theatre and he sat in the middle of the hall. Her interpretation: Menon, with his foreign name and accent, was going to blow up the theatre.
“And I said ‘What? What the **** was she talking about’?”
The officers, all from the Midtown Precinct South, asked Menon what he remembered from the prior day’s conversation and then called the Telecharge operator to check her story.
Eventually, they removed Menon’s handcuffs and let him go. They did not apologise, but the one dressed in uniform told him that he had been nervous reporting to work that day.
“He was on a theatre beat and said: ‘You are afraid? Well, I was also afraid. I was afraid that my five-month-old daughter would not see her father tonight. I was supposed to grab you from behind and if you had an explosive, I may have blown up with you. These were the thoughts going through my mind’,” said Menon.
The police officer then escorted the couple to the theatre to pick up their tickets. The man behind the window was much more apologetic and informed Menon that their tickets were on the house. The couple was ushered in and seated in the orchestra section.
During the intermission, the house manager Carmel Gunther walked up to them and again offered her apologies.
“She said, ‘I believe it is your wedding anniversary and that you actually wanted to see The Producers. We can certainly arrange for you to see The Producers. Would you like to see it tomorrow?’ And I said no, not tomorrow.”
But Menon did accept Gunther’s offer. On November 6, he and Collur will see Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in The Producers, courtesy the Martin Beck Theatre.
eofia,
So there was a similiar case just after 911 as well! More or less the same key words: crowded, popular – that raise red flags.
Quick – anybody here who has a close relative who’s a cop – raise your hands.
Mmmmm – “fault” is dependent on the context of the situation. Or am I being too realistic?
I think too many folks here look at things as how they should be instead of how things actually are.
It was the prevalent sense of humour that attracted me to this blog….
…but rhetorical branding may be thing that drives me away. But then, that would’nt be too bad, would it?
M. Nam
They were from Birmingham!
The jokes and stories will be doing the rounds in pubs across Handsworth and Wolverhampton soon – watch them transmute from being handcuffed politely to being chased by machine gun wielding FBI agents and Bruce Willis action sequences hahaha
Only a Punjabi guy from Birmingham could be so chilled out and relaxed about it – ahhh yes – salt of the Earth – capital city of bhangra (and falsely arrested tourists in New York) – have a glassy and raise a salute to the Brummies!
It’s interesting that the paranoia from non “South-Asian” people gets to the point of being ludicrous. Without fail, on the subway, when I reach into my briefcase for something, there is someone staring nervously at me as if I am going to pull out a grenade or something. What a look of relief on their face when it is just the latest Harry Potter book….sheesh.
Funny thing is, this morning there were a group of Police-Men standing by a table conducting random searches of bags, briefcases and backpacks….I thought that they would stop me since I was a South Asian and was carrying a briefase that looked like it was stuffed (it was, with books)….but instead they smile and let me go and stop the Caucasian guy behind me who has this tiny little backpack, which looks pretty much empty. Go figure…..
I think one of the most bizarre experiences was when I was traveling to California, and they had pulled over this five year old kid and security was making him take off his sneakers and checking his clothes, all while his horrified parents looked on.
It’s a strange world we live in, and it’s easy to point the blame and hatred towards others. It’s happening on both sides. The real challenge is how to live with this and how to deal with ignorance, fear….hatred………..
Even amongst the diasporic-Muslims, those of Pakistani descent often seem to be the perpetrators(the Daniel Pearl murderer, the London bombings, the Egypt bombings…). I wonder why this is so
i really believe bcuz there is an inferiority complex amongst many Pakistani’s that one, they didn’t achieve independence separately from India on their own, it took india to secede from the british for Pakistan to exist at all. Two, I think it’s also bcuz Muslims in Pakistan are fascinated w/ power and conquest and being that Pakistan has always been run by religious law and religious pretenses coupled w/ frequent military coups, it sets the standard that power is to be attained at all costs. I know this is a radical explanation, but this is what I truly believe based off my experiences. My family has many Pakistani friends that are nice people, but they still make it a point to draw that ‘line in the sand’ that we are different from them, even though here in teh US, we all share very common cultural bonds. Sad
Can you back any of these generalizations up with some kind of evidence? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but it’s hard to say you’re right about links to the political culture and everything else. Despite that we’re just commenters on a blog, at this point in time, it seems unfair and irresponsible to join the pile on on Pakistanis without some really strong evidence that what you’re arguing is the case.
I say this in part because my experience with the Pakistanis and Pakistani Americans has been vastly different: 1) welcoming 2) friendship 3) differences in class, language, and presumed sexuality differences making me feel alienated 4) watching self-serving self-appointed leaders kowtow to the American government and or their own interests and/or milk the press 5) observving fear and bitterness over targeted deportations that helped to severely undermine their biggest community 6) accusations of domestic violence against some of the men and 7) a really lame Independence day festival where there was no dancing despite music. Different people had different reactions; the subset above includes working class people I tried (largely fruitlessly) to help with immigartion problems, people I met through SALGA, friends who were also activists, leftists, moderates, Americans, uncles, and an aunty or two thrown in.
Can you back any of these generalizations up with some kind of evidence?
i know that what i said is really harsh and non PC, so i thought hard before writing that, but I have experienced many of the same things you listed previously. I don’t have hard evidence to support my claims, hence, i prefaced my original comments w/ ‘based on my experiences’.
i guess i do see some overt differences between indian muslims and pakistani muslims here. I feel that indian muslims on the whole are a lot more welcoming and open to others and don’t necessarily make a distinction between being paki, bangla, or indian, i get the feeling they consider us one on the whole (yes there are exceptions). On the other hand, the pakistanis that I have come across for the most part do consider other desis based off religion and especially nationality. You have to walk on eggshells a bit more around them than you would indian muslims. It’s a lot harder to socialize or have real discussions w/ pakistanis w/o incensing them (that could be my cheery personality though ;)), whereas i have not had those issues w/ indian muslims. Also, in a business setting, i have seen Pakistanis go out of their way to first serve Pakistanis and then others. Also, for example, i have seen at my wedding and at other non muslim weddings, more indian muslims will take part to some degree in the festivities whereas the Pakistani Muslims will make it a point to let you know they think what you do is wrong, or is wrong for them to do. If they aren’t comfortable, fine, but they also don’t have to make a public stance against it either right?
however, my dad’s 2 best friends here are pakistani muslims and are the greatest people in the world, so what the hell do I know.
Along the same lines as the double-decker bus incident:
A flight from Los Angeles to London was diverted to Boston early Tuesday because three Pakistani passengers were acting suspiciously, but nothing amiss was found and the three were released after questioning, authorities said.
United Airlines Flight 934 landed in Boston shortly before 3 a.m., Logan Airport spokesman Phil Orlandella said.
The three Pakistani men were taken into custody and questioned after other passengers complained that they were moving about the cabin, FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz said.
”Some of the individuals were in first class and another was in coach,” and they were walking between the two sections, she said.
The full thing is here: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Flight-Diverted.html
The New York TImes does a follow up:
You tell ’em, Mikey.
Right-wing press and politicians in the West are responsible for the comments which are fuelling public paranoia about Asian-looking travellers !
A couple of examples would do nicely — I guess you’ve heard about all of them :
(1)An innocent young Brazilian whose only crime was he overstayed ( barely a capital offence per se ! ) and , who WASN’T behaving suspiciously, was mercilessly gunned down by trigger-nervous plainclothesmen of the London Metropolitan Police — because he LOOKED like an Asian — in a botched-up operation based on wrong intelligence in 2005 ; despite an attempt at cover-up, they were tried but not only they walked free, they all returned to firearms duties eventually !
(2) The same Mets ( London Metropolitan Police ) raided the home of two Bangladeshi “terror suspects” in East London in 2006 at the crack of dawn and shot one of them in the arm from a few feet away although they were unarmed, dressed in their nightclothes and not offering any resistance; nothing that can link them to terrorism was found in their home !
(3) Two men in their 20s were taken off a Malaga-Manchester flight at the insistence of the rest of the passengers ( who were mostly white ) EVEN after they were security-checked and a thorough search of the airliner revealed nothing unusual. Their crime ? They looked like Asians, were long-haired, wore thick jackets and spoke with each other in ‘what sounded like Arabic’! All very ‘suspicious’ without a doubt, but why dump them ,if they’re clean, simply because most of their fellow passengers won’t trust them ?
Islamic militancy is the scourge of the 21st century but it’s immensely clear now that it’s a Frankestein the West HELPED create : Osama Bin-laden and the Taliban would have been dead meat long ago, had the CIA not armed ALL Mujaheddin guerrillas with Stinger missiles , regardless of religious fanaticism, in Afghanistan in the ’80s !
Back to the core issue : if Britain is gripped by safety awareness gone mad, picture to yourself what Americans ( who have long developed a siege mentality ) can do ! The UK, BTW, is no stranger to terrorism but Irish air travellers were probably not taken off flights without a good reason in the darkest days of the IRA-led terrorism !
“Racial profiling” is not fool-proof : “shoe-bomber” was a WHITE Radical Islamist and the 7/7 terrorists sent a second team two weeks later that consisted of North Africans ! Only good intelligence — which is the best weapon to fight terrorism with — can prevent future attacks but “racial profiling” is a quick-fix thing that’s far easier to plan and carry out — and it keeps the public happy.
If you’re a young Asian ( or “Asian-looking” ) male ( females cannot be terrorists, apparently ), be prepare yourself mentally for some systemetic humiliation in the West no matter what your faith or nationality : blame it on your skin colour ! After all, shouldn’t you do your bit when it comes to making the world safe for WHITES ?