Given what happened last week in Virginia, the events described in this post might seem trivial, but I feel quite strongly that they are not. What’s at issue is a fundamental question of civil rights — the right to live one’s life without being harrassed, investigated, or needlessly spied on.
The Indian-American poet Kazim Ali teaches at Shippensburg University, which is a little west of Harrisburg, PA (and not too far from where I myself teach).
On his website, he recently described how his “suspicious” behavior led to his entire campus being shut down. The behavior in question? Recycling. He was doing nothing other than dropping off a stack of printouts of poems to be recycled when someone from the campus ROTC called the police:
A young man from ROTC was watching me as I got into my car and drove away. I thought he was looking at my car which has black flower decals and sometimes inspires strange looks. I later discovered that I, in my dark skin, am sometimes not even a person to the people who look at me. Instead, in spite of my peacefulness, my committed opposition to all aggression and war, I am a threat by my very existence, a threat just living in the world as a Muslim body.
Upon my departure, he called the local police department and told them a man of Middle Eastern descent driving a heavily decaled white Beetle with out of state plates and no campus parking sticker had just placed a box next to the trash can. My car has New York plates, but he got the rest of it wrong. I have two stickers on my car. One is my highly visible faculty parking sticker and the other, which I just don’t have the heart to take off these days, says “Kerry/Edwards: For a Stronger America.”
Because of my recycling the bomb squad came, the state police came. Because of my recycling buildings were evacuated, classes were canceled, campus was closed. No. Not because of my recycling. Because of my dark body. No. Not because of my dark body. Because of his fear. Because of the way he saw me. Because of the culture of fear, mistrust, hatred, and suspicion that is carefully cultivated in the media, by the government, by people who claim to want to keep us safe. […]
One of my colleagues was in the gathering crowd, trying to figure out what had happened. She heard my description–a Middle Eastern man driving a white beetle with out of state plates–and knew immediately they were talking about me and realized that the box must have been manuscripts I was discarding. She approached them and told them I was a professor on the faculty there. Immediately the campus police officer said, “What country is he from?”
“What country is he from?!” she yelled, indignant. (link)
Now, I normally try and avoid the “rant” voice, but I must say, I’ve had just about enough of these incidents. Don’t the campus police at Shippensburg U. have a minimum criterion for “suspicious”? Was it necessary to call the state police and the bomb squad? A faculty member dropping off a box of papers by a recycling bin at a semi-rural university simply ought not to have to deal with this kind of nonsense. It’s just insane.It must have been a harrowing experience, but fortunately it ended without further incident.
The University wrote a statement to Ali following this incident, but Kazim Ali isn’t at all satisfied with it, presumably because the university wouldn’t want to acknowledge that Ali’s race was a factor in an incident where his civil rights may have been violated:
The university’s bizarrely minimal statement lets everyone know that the “suspicious package” beside the trashcan ended up being, indeed, trash. It goes on to say, “We appreciate your cooperation during the incident and remind everyone that safety is a joint effort by all members of the campus community.”
What does that community mean to me, a person who has to walk by the ROTC offices every day on my way to my own office just down the hall–who was watched, noted, and reported, all in a days work? Today we gave in willingly and whole-heartedly to a culture of fear and blaming and profiling. It is deemed perfectly appropriate behavior to spy on one another and police one another and report on one another. Such behaviors exist most strongly in closed and undemocratic and fascist societies.
The university report does not mention the root cause of the alarm. That package became “suspicious” because of who was holding it, who put it down, who drove away. Me.
It was poetry, I kept insisting to the state policeman who was questioning me on the phone. It was poetry I was putting out to be recycled. (link)
“Fascism” is a strong word, but sometimes you need to go there. Perhaps the key difference is, at least here the police have to adhere to basic concepts of due process. In a truly fascist society, none of that would apply. (We could, of course, debate matters such as Guantanamo Bay, CIA secret detention facilities, the practice of “rendition,” and the currently blurry line between “interrogation techniques” and torture. Those practices by themselves certainly don’t make the U.S. a “fascist” society, but they do force us to consider the troubling gap between the rhetoric of democracy and its actual practice in the U.S. under the present administration.)
As a side note, the “—- while brown” meme seems to be one that has legs. Here are some other posts at SM that use the term:
Flying While Brown (Actually, quite a number of posts use this phrase.)
Shopkeeping while brown (Admittedly a more complicated incident — Operation Meth Merchant)
Camping While Brown (a post from Manish from before Sepia Mutiny; not sure what the title is about)
You say you know that, but you sure talk like you don’t! Hijackings didn’t start on Sept. 11, nor did security screenings nor unreasonable racial profiling. Driving, flying, walking, while brown – all these incidents have occured before Sept. 11.
They happened during and after the Iranian crisis 1980, after the Air India disaster 1985, several other hijackings in the 1980s and 1990s, the First Gulf War 1991, etc. Maybe you weren’t old enough then, and don’t remember, or weren’t impacted. Fine. But don’t blame me for pointing out the historical context.
Besides which, I also provided a general socio-economic context to understand the greater resentment that some in the majority population are expressing towards South Asians post-2001, that has nothing to do with Sept. 11.
And I wasn’t lecturing you, I was disagreeing with what you said in a public forum.
I focused on this passage which seems to best illustrate the brown person’s fear of profiling and the sentiment underlying that concept: The police officer told me that in the current climate I needed to be more careful about how I behaved. “When I recycle?” I asked.
essentially the cop is asking the professor to be either “less brown,” or even, “less conspicuously brown.”
It’s basically because homeland security know that all terrorist are queuing up at recycling centers nationwide, carrying boxes of their careworn copies of Leaves of Grass or the Satanic Verses.
i think it is awesome most of the TSA people doing the checking at least at Newark airport are brown. It makes me laugh my asymmetric ass off.
All conversations above in some way assume a model of human behavior. Each of us possess a variety of models within us and sometimes these are contradictory. From a meta or mehta point of view, any theory regarding public policy ie security etc must factor in as many of these models as possible. Our brain loves to short circuit these ways of thinking leading to economic ways of lying to ourselves.
Here is some perspective to discredit myself:
Laws are always for the masses. Most people are stupid. Stability therefore is likely protected.
Smart people and psychotics ones etc have most potential to subvert laws. Thank god they are few.
start worrying when the pool of dumdums shrinks because of translocation to the smart psychotic pool . it can be a dynamic process.
I think this can be achieved by tying a sweater around your shoulders or driving about in an old Volvo listening to “Prairie Home Companion”. Is that too much to ask for ?
Wow, you must be exhausted after such flimsy rationalization of every single detail of the incident. You know, no one is really calling the ACLU about this, nor is anyone organizing a mass protest. All we’re saying is that this one of many shitty incidents which innocent brown folks have had to endure for a while, especially in recent years. THAT. IS. ALL. STOP TRYING TO SAY THAT WE’RE COMPARING THIS TO APARTHEID OR SOMETHING.
Damn. Sorry for the ALL CAPS but I honestly wonder about some of the comments on here. I’m all for opposing opinions, but to blow the comments of those who empathize with Kazam Ali WAY out of proportion is getting really fucking old. And stop the goddamn selective listening: it’s not as if people who denounce racial harassment (yes, replace Kazam Ali with Debbie Schlussel and I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have been asked which country she is from, nor would classes have been canceled) have never denounced terrorism, extremism, religious fundamentalism, etc.
And seriously, what the fuck kind of argument is, “Well, there’s a lot of shit out there that’s more tragic in nature, so let’s call what happened to Mr. Ali ‘inconvenient’ and stop the bitching”? No shit! That’s like going up to a rape victim and saying, “Well, you do dress like a slut, and at least he didn’t slash your throat, so stop whining.” Extreme example? Nah. Because there’s always going to be a a bigger tragedy out there to one-up your shit.
I’m just curious, what motivates such delusional rationalization and denial about incidents like this? Desire to be seen as cool and objective? Or is your masculinity threatened by the fact that some dudes are harassing brown people? Do you just feel small? Spit it out already.
And for all the idiotic assertions that “this is reality” and incidents are just indicative of the “typical assholery of daily life,” I’m sure glad people didn’t listen to you folks when slavery was around, when women weren’t allowed to vote, when the Japanese were interned, etc. (Honestly, if you get kicked in the nuts, do you just stand there with a high-pitched laugh bemoaning the intractable nature of human behavior???)
I know – I’m a crazy ranting liberal bitch. Got it. I understand that the rant voice is looked down upon, but this isn’t a tea party or the UN. I’ve toned down the “academic puffery” for the morons who don’t understand, so let me be raw for a moment if only to forge an alliance with another unknown crazy bitch out there who is also oh-so-slightly-perturbed at the stank coming from the kitchen.
Go Sai!
I’ll get us some t-shirts made.
Sai, #105:
Ordinarily, I’d agree with you, but Amardeep’s original post said “‘Fascism’ is a strong word, but sometimes you need to go there.” To his credit, he goes on to say “none of this makes the U.S. a fascist society.” But by bringing up genuine outrages like Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, torture of prisoners, etc., he makes a comparison that just isn’t justified.
Yeah, but a rape victim has actually been the victim of a horrific crime, whereas Kazam Ali has not been. There are degrees to “tragedy,” and Mr. Ali’s tragedy doesn’t stack up against slavery, women being denied suffrage, or the internment of the Japanese. That doesn’t mean that Mr. Ali should “stop whining.” It does mean that it is possible for others to make too much of it.
Your powers of perception are quite astounding. As it happens, a rampaging mob killed my beloved puppy right after 9/11. When recounting the death of little Dusty to my then-girlfriend, I burst into tears. She laughed at me, told me that I was being hysterical, and said that if I was more of man I could have prevented it. Then she made several uncomplimentary remarks regarding the size of my…cocker spaniel, and broke up with me on the spot. My psyche hasn’t been the same since. So as you can see, my delusional rationalizations are motivated by a combination of a desire to be seen as cool and objective, a threat to my masculinity due to harassment, and just feeling small.
Well, as I’ve said, my nuts are apparently a pretty small target, so being kicked in them probably wouldn’t bother me all that much. My high-pitched girlish laugh, though, mortifies me…
Speedy
Arent all of those things hallmarks of fascist dictatorships? These are not things that should happen in democracies, are they? So why is the comparison not justified as a way to concentrate the mind and make people think about what is being done by the state? It’s appropriate to describe why a great democracy like America should be awake to what is happening. Amardeep’s contextualising, with the correct perspective and caveats, was 100% accurate fair and apt.
While we’re on the subject, Naomi Wolf in today’s Guardian – Facist America, in 10 easy steps
Despite having a penis, I’ll hold my liberal credentials up to anyone’s. This isn’t about excusing profiling, stereotyping, or any other of these incidents. I’m glad this article was posted, and I thought Ali’s response to the incident was great. I also think statements that start or end with “in this climate” are disgusting.
But I also hear a lot of complaining about being profiled at airport’s and other daily harrassments that S. Asians have to deal with on a daily basis. Yes, Sai, there is always a bigger tragedy. Black people were largely brought here against their will and were still intentionally segregated and being lynched in public during our lifetimes – compared to that our experiences don’t warrant perpetual whining about persecution. Speedy is exactly right – this man had to suffer undue embarrasment due to the idiocy of an overly paranoid wingnut, but thank dog he wasn’t detained (like some people I know).
All I’m saying is that we all believe we are normal, upright citizens incapable of detonating explosives or killing anything, much less innocent people. If you want white Americans to stop seeing us as terrorists, there are many ways to acheive that. Education is one, eliminating terrorism (to whatever degree you can) is another. However, whining about hillbillies and calling America a facist state is not going to change anyone’s perception of you, so why keep doing it? Yes you should stand up for your rights, and in doing so, you should also do what the people of Karachi did last week and call out the radical idiots who kill teachers who teach girls. I’ll assume being a crazy ranting liberal bitch (who are wonderful – the world needs more of you), those are values you can take to the mat.
I don’t get what’s the big deal about it. We should be thankful to the ROTC guy that he saw something and followed up on it. It was a false alert but so what? We would all rather have false positives than have something slip through.
We all browns have to live with an extra level of scrutiny post 9/11 and that is natural. After all it wasn’t a bunch of blonde scandinavians who wreaked havoc that day. And that is ok. This country is so great, so good that I hope people would not blow up small incidents like this out of proportion.
Commentary on what it’s like in Australia: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/24/howto_hack_australia.html
It wasn’t black skinned Indians like me that day either. It was people from the Gulf who wouldn’t look out of place in Bensonhurst on Columbus Day.
More then half of the 19 losers on 9/11 could pass for a desi.
Some of us just choose the lesser of two evils and work to improve our lot and environment from there. Escapism is not the answer.
I have yet to see how this dude knew that the ROTC guy was the one that phoned him in?
oh come on. he was standing there staring. he’s rotc. he fits the profile.
of course, if he’s innocent, the rotc guy can always write a poem entitled “staring while rotc.” till then, its a safe assumption that he’s the culprit.
“This country is so great, so good that I hope people would not blow up small incidents like this out of proportion.”
This country is so great that it gives me the opportunity to recycle carefully :p
I think part of what makes this country great is that each person has the right to challenge wrongful behavior, and ask for justice. Let’s not forget that what makes this country great is inclusion, not paranoid “us” vs “them” mob mentality. There are many of us first gens who are sick of that in India, and that’s why we chose to stay here.
@HMF and @Prema
I admit that both of you have provided valid information about terrorists being of other races as well, and proved me ignorant on several statements. Thank you for providing me with the information. But I find that you are on the other extreme of this argument, when actually the other extreme is equally as dangerous. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be supporting the complete denial of the race of this extremism. And I would like to see how far this denial goes. So help me out here :
(1) Do you accept that currently, extremist Islam is the biggest threat to America in terms of terrorist acts?
(2) If yes, do you agree that strictly statistically speaking , it is more probable that people from majority Islamic countries are more likely to be of this Islamist subset than people from other Christian/Buddhist countries ? eg. you are more likely to find islamic extremists in Iraq/Iran/Pakistan/Afghanistan than say China ?
(3) If statistically speaking, you agreed on 1 and 2, and I show you a map of the world labeled by their majority religion, would you agree that by sheer probability it is more likely that people of the areas marked Green are more likely to be extremists than the others? Statistically speaking only
(4) If you agreed on 3 as well, then do you deny a connection between area of origin and ethnicity ? eg. do you deny that middle-eastern will be predominantly brown.. whereas European/Western will be predominantly caucasian?
If you agreed from 1-4, you will support this statement – ‘Statistically/Mathematically speaking, the probability P of a brown middle eastern man being a terrorist is greater than that of any other race’. If you did not agree , I want to know which of the 4 points you disagree on and why.
Thanks for the engaging debate, plz be civil.
Sorry forgot to provide the link: http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-religion-map.htm
Hi Randomizer,
Sorry to jump into your conversation but I wanted to question some of the assumptions you have made with your premises.
Firstly I don’t accept your first premise, I think fundamentalist religion as a whole may be damaging to the US, not just from Muslims but also from Christians (I’m looking at it from a complete outsider’s point of view). I take it however that you mean if a terrorist act is commited, you believe that the odds will be higher that it is a fundamentalist Muslim rather than not (please correct me if I’m wrong) – I strongly disagree with you there as it makes a lot of assumptions about the likely hood of an attack.
Well, you’ve assumed that I agree with you on the first premise, but I don’t so for starters the second premise fails. Without all that however, you’re second premise makes the assumption that Islam breeds extremists, particularly in countries where that is the chief faith. I don’t think you’re ever going to find out that statistic which will tell you “more people believe that blowing other people up is a good act of faith live in X and believe in X” (again please correct me if I’ve misrepresented your point of view).
You have just, to me, made to many jumps in your assumptions for your argument to be sound. In fact I don’t think there’s any point in going through your third and fourth premise because, again, they rely on accepting the first two premises.
Your final conclusion:
Er, no I don’t, I didn’t need the argument before hand to do that too, nor do I need to be American as your conclusion does not require me to be. I’m a NZer in the UK, the IRA used to be “the terrorists” here not even decade ago, in Spain it’s the ETA, in Russia they would probably say the Chechens.
I want to see your statistics that support these statements.
I guess the bottom line is: how long are the vast, vast, vast majority of brown people in this country (and I feel completely justified in lumping Desis and Arabs together by skin color precisely because of incidents like this) supposed to put up with being constant suspects.
My fear is that arguments like Randomizer’s imply that the answer is “always.” We are always supposed to be under suspicion. As are our kids. And our grandkids. And so on. No matter what we do, what we believe, how well we adjust, or even how culturally “white” we become, our skin color is entirely enough to condemn us to quasi-criminal status forever (or at least until we all interbreed with white people).
That’s a pretty awful view of the future, isn’t it? Especially when profiling has no proven impact, and relies solely on inductive, untested reasoning as its basis.
@sonal –
Thanks for sharing your views. Well, since you disagree with my first premise – you are discounting many events that happened in the last 10 years:
You say that extremism in all religions is equally a threat to the US … does the US have extremist Christian enemies or extremist hindu enemies who have in the last 10 years committed terrorist acts here in the US ? If so, I am unaware of them
As for the NRA, chechens, etc – The current context is the United States … so bringing up local terrorist elements is not very relevant in this debate. For instance, the LTTE in sri lanka doesn’t belong to this debate. If we were talking about prejudice in Sri Lanka, maybe, but not here.
There have been a few here and there.
But ultimately, the fact is that we live in a multiracial society which RELIES on the presumption that all people have equal rights. If you’re willing to throw out that presumption for purely utilitarian (though, again, unproven) reasons of safety, you need to realize we’ll be discarding that functional multiracial society again. To proclaim one skin color a danger while another is “safe” (even though members of both “color groups” have committed horrific acts of violence both in and out of the United States) would mean dumping us back into segregration.
Note, I’m not saying what happened to this professor was “segregation”. But I do think incidents like this are a probable first step down that road.
@Neal –
I’m brown too and am on the receiving end as well. As long as the United States wages wars with Middle-Eastern countries with brown people , and the faces of the ‘enemy’ is constantly brown, we will be under suspicion here. Hopefully the wars will end soon and peace will ensue … While I am definitely against blatant,hyper suspicion to the point of ‘recycling when brown’ , I believe that the absolute denial of the role ethnicity has to play is too extreme as well.
At Virgilius # 100
Thank you .Your comment reminds us all once again why it is so important to stand up against discrimination – however mild.
By posting your ill-intentioned, malicious and offensive comment , you have just validated this entire discussion.
I commend all the other mutineers here for rising above and not responding.Alas , I am not as patient.
Wow… so all of this is based on the fact that this guy thinks the ROTC guy called him in? The rotc guy has had no chance to defend himself and we are just taking this poet’s perspective? All this rush to judgment based on that? It is really interesting how this guy who obviously has been hurt by SOMEONE else’s profiling is so quick to profile…
Yeah, I know what you were doing daycruz. Very naughty and clever. The guy who complained about profiling may be a profiler himself. I was making it more obvious for the other Mutineers.
But for the record, my heart goes out to Ali. Whoever called the cops was hysterical. The cops acted more or less reasonably (except for the unfortunate “what country is he from” question) as one must err on the the side of caution. I don’t trust Ali because of his riduculous opposition to all war and he does seem a bit preoccupyed with ROTC in his statement. Probably he has an agenda, especially since he hysterically grabs for the F-word like Joe McCarthy grabbed the C-word.
Now, did he profile the ROTC dude? Assuming he did (meaning he has no other info), I don’t blame him. Unlike the profiling of him, he has a resonable case. The guy was staring and ROTCs are probably more likely to be informants (though the military can be much more liberal than meets the eye, especially people from west point).
So I sympathize with Ali but cannot completely reject profiling. After all, if I knew the klan was planning an attack, I wouldn’t keep an eye out for loner Korean dudes.