Eight weeks ago, relaying news of the harassment of a Hindu family in Wayne, NJ, our own A N N A made a prescient comment. Remarking on the verbiage of the reported written threats (“We Kill U,” “We will Fire your house,” “Watch Your Kids”) she said:
Feel free to scream at me for this, but I know desis who sound just like that, not that I’m in any way implying that it’s an inside job OR that asshat racists are usually articulate. “We will Fire your house”?
Her hunch was correct. It was an inside job. In what an email from SAJA delicately calls a “twist” in the story, it turns out that the perpetrator of six months’ worth of threatening letters and spray-painted messages was the family’s own son, now 17.
The ensuing investigation — which included DNA, fingerprint and computer analysis — brought together Wayne police, the Prosecutor’s Office, the state Division of Criminal Justice and the FBI.
Avigliano said the boy had recruited several friends to help with his campaign, which began with a series of hate letters in late January. Several teenagers have been interviewed, and more will be questioned in the next few days, the prosecutor said. Criminal charges are imminent, he said.
Reached by phone, the boy’s father said Friday that he was overwhelmed with pain as he tried to elicit answers from his son. The Record has withheld the family’s name at their request.
“My heart is breaking right now,” he said. “I can’t figure out why my son would do something like that.”
Indeed, the motive remains unclear, with police speculating only that the young man was upset at the familyÂ’s having recently moved to Wayne from another New Jersey town.
This would simply be a garden-variety family drama featuring a teenager alienated from his parents for reasons not ours to know, were it not, of course, for the ethnic and religious dimension of the threatening language, which raised the alarm of community organizations as well as the authorities:
There were also ethnic slurs — “I HATE INDIANS,” for example — and others too vulgar to print that targeted Hindus.
No doubt there are various morals to this story that people will put forward from different points of view. Suffice here to note that this is a sad story and a reminder that in all aspects of life, things are often not what they seem.
another kid gone outta control … gettin all ghetto n shite … something like moving from one town to another isn’t really a strong motive for such a stupid act !!
this happens a lot. people take advantage when they can….
seems like the kid saw freedomland too many a times … blame it on the obvios suspects … too bad that one of em coppers must have watched it too ….
That was good Anna. You get a gold star.
Yes, I guess it is sad when you get down to the bare, nitty, gritty details, but I’m sorry. I found this incredibly funny. It all sounds like a Dave Chappelle joke gone horribly wrong.
I suppose, having lived as an Indian teen in very non-Indian surroundings, I can somewhat understand where the son is coming from.
I think he should take a page from Kaavya and go into hiding for a while. Years later they can surface on a desi version of The Surreal Life on MTV Desi.
Some Sikh-American kid did the same, alleging a racist attack, when he actually cut his own hair to avoid harassment. Wanted to spare himself the family tension.
What’s most telling to me, is even racial intimidation has transcended to using “IM speak.” Makes me reminisce, ahhh, the good ol days when bigots took the time to spell out the entire words “We will Kill You” What’s next, tacking on a “:(” at the end?
“We Kill You” or “We fire your house” doesn’t seem like IM speak to me. It just sounds like really bad grammar. I teach college juniors/sophomores and used to be surprised by their abysmal grammar. Now I feel that I’m feeding into the problem by suggesting they use the Spell Check in Word.
They wrote “We kill u”,
But you’re right. They ain’t winning no grammar rodeo any time soon…
(yes, I wrote it that way deliberately)
Damn I read this and thought funny and sad all at once. If I did shit like this when I was a kid I would have gotten a good ole spanking of a lifetime. My parents would have totally kicked my ass and simply the thought of getting a asswooping would have been enough to make me do something so stupid!
HMF, my bad.
I c wat u mean.
Someone’s into some S and M, eh?
“..Gettin all ghetto”? Uh, could you be any more racist? How does acting like a self-centered brat have anything to do in general with living in an impoverished area or is it that you like trafficking in racist stereotypes of African-Americans and Latinos.
Damn that should have read “…and simply the thought of getting a asswooping would have been enough to NOT make me do something so stupid!” OMG…
A family under seige, a troubled youth, and a twist ending? I suspect M. Night Shyamalan is behind this.