N.Y. Giants games are no fun

Some of you may have heard that last week five Muslim fans alleged racial bias while attending a New York Giants game. The Boston Globe reported:

Five Muslim football fans were detained and questioned during a game [Sep. 19th] at Giants Stadium because they were congregating near an air duct on a night former President George H.W. Bush was in the stadium, the FBI said yesterday.

Some of the Muslims said they did not know they were in a sensitive area, and said they were subjected to racial profiling while they were praying, as their faith requires five times a day.

”I’m as American as apple pie and I’m sitting there and now I’m made to feel like I’m an outsider, for no reason other than I have a long beard or that I prayed,” said Sami Shaban, a 27-year-old Seton Hall Law School student who lives in Piscataway.

Come on, they are probably just being oversensitive, right? I was willing to give the FBI the benefit of the doubt:

FBI agent Steven Siegel, a spokesman for the bureau’s FBI office, said the men had aroused suspicion because they were congregating near the main air intake duct. Bush was in the stadium that night as part of a fund-raising campaign he and former President Bill Clinton were leading for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The site is now fenced off and is no longer accessible to fans.

Ok, no harm no foul. Then I read this article yesterday. Seems like this might be a pattern at Giants games, at least when there is a Bush in the house:

Two more men stepped forward Friday accusing authorities at Giants Stadium of racial profiling.

Mathew Varughese, 26, of Port Chester, and Pierre Mainville, 28, of Stamford, Conn., said they and four other men were unfairly questioned and detained by stadium police and the FBI during a Sept. 19 Giants-Saints game.

The incident happened the same day that five Muslim men were detained and questioned by authorities. Those men, who accused authorities of violating their religious rights, are considering whether to file a lawsuit. [Link]

Now I admit that I don’t have all the facts in the case, but it is still disturbing The people singled out were various shades of brown:

Varughese, Mainville, two of their friends and two men seated behind them were asked to leave their seats by stadium police, who said they had heard reports that the group was snapping photographs of the game.

“The problem was we didn’t have cameras,” said Varughese, an attorney.

They were then handed over to FBI officials who asked them about their nationalities and religious backgrounds, said Mainville, a financial analyst. Varughese and his cousin are Indian, Mainville is half black and half white, and their other friend is Dominican. All the men are Christian, Varughese said.

As they were escorted out of their seats, someone yelled out: “Go back to your country,” Varughese said. [Link]

They also allegedly asked the men…if they had been praying. [Link]

What makes me angry is that the system is set up to make abuse easy. In both cases the FBI said that someone reported “suspicious” activity. Let’s say that I am a bigot and I am sitting there watching the Giants game. I see a group of “browns” in front of me that I feel shouldn’t be at “my” game. I can easily abuse the system by calling it in. Problem solved and I can watch my game. “Suspicious people” should get the opportunity to confront the people that reported them if found to be innocent. That would cut down on this kind of thing, and both groups would be pulled from enjoying their game.

“We responded to a suspicious activity,” said FBI Spokesman Steven Siegel. “There are billboards out there, “If you see something suspicious, call this number.’ Someone was suspicious.” [Link]

13 thoughts on “N.Y. Giants games are no fun

  1. So it takes the BOSTON Globe to report discrimination at a NY game. Seems like some rivalries go beyond the Sports Page

  2. So it takes the BOSTON Globe to report discrimination at a NY game.

    To be fair, it was an AP story that went out over the wire. 🙂

  3. Finally port chester new york gets its day in the sun. anyway mathew varghese actually put together a news conference about the whole situation and it was aired on friday i believe. I will try to see if i can find a feed somewheres.

  4. I dont know how many of your have been to the Giants Stadium or any football stadium. Where can you find a place to pray?

    It still surprises me that they were praying at a football stadium in the middle of a game !!

  5. I can’t believe I’m responding to Xag’s nonsense, but I will do it for the record. Being Jewish has nothing to do with profiling. Even some Jews have complained about profiling based on their skin color. Why? Cause quite a few of them look like Arabs.

  6. I was also surprised to find that they would go pray during a football game, but to each his own. If you’ve made that commitment to your faith, then that’s your business. I’m not saying that I don’t understand the stadium security being high strung having high profile officials in attendance, but they definitely could have handled things much better than they did. The men who were profiled were willing to cooperate, and the security was just being ignorant.

  7. UPDATE:

    The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority said it will provide a special area for anyone who wants to pray at Giants Stadium or the Continental Airlines Arena. That’s in response to Muslim groups’ outcries after several fans who prayed at a New York Giants game were detained and questioned by the FBI in September.
  8. This stuff happens everyday. It could be any scenario…… One of the reasons a ‘brown’ gets turned down for a job, a loan, etc. They sure get picked for security checks at the airport though

  9. They sure get picked for security checks at the airport though

    I am not so sure about this. I was travelling a lot before and after 9/11; going from Long Island to chicago twice a month till about Sept. 2004. Not once was I pulled out for extra random screening either at the gate or anywhere else (I am a “brown” Indian born in India). I was always quite impressed by that fact; their criteria for the extra screening was not based just on skin colour.