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)
Sorry to hear about the ‘recycling package while brown’ scares…now, how about some golden showers with cow urine because your teacher didnt like your caste?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKSP32758320070421?feedType=RSS
Well, most desis wouldn’t want to live in central PA for the exact cultural reasons you describe. And while I do agree with Amardeep’s general assessment of this particular incident, I also feel that some of us have superhuman expectations of ordinary white people in this country…even if what Chachaji says above about central PA is true, can you entirely blame them? Is there any single ethnically/culturally homogenous zone on Earth that is at the same time completely welcoming and ‘non-othering’ of foreigners? I’d say that inspite of the above, they (and midwesterners, who share a similar culture) are among the more friendly ones out there in many ways.
I think this is a myth that is perpetuated to make brown people feel better about their security. You know, “I live in New York, it’s a cosmopolitan city, it’s not like Alabama/Mississippi/Virginia, so bad things won’t happen to me here just because I’m brown”. This could just as easily have happened in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. In fact, I remember reading about a Pakistani doctor in a Philadelphia suburb who was investigated after 9-11 for “suspicious activity”. Incidents like these don’t really have anything to do with a general attitude. All it takes is a few suspicious individuals, and those individuals could be anywhere–a rural town, an airport, driver along a major interstate.
I mean to say “incidents like this don’t really have anything to do with a regional attitude”. They probably are related to a general nationwide attitude of heightened suspicion.
Amitabh writes: >>they (and midwesterners, who share a similar culture) are among the more friendly ones out there
I love central Pennsylvania and the Mid-West! For $6/- they put enough food in front of you that could feed a small village in India. I mean, who eats that much?!!
M. Nam
I agree for the most part with mfunnierthanyou , who said that many crimes could have been stopped if people had been more vigilant… and we end up bashing all those people who do report suspicious activity. Had Cho been of middle-eastern descent, he would have been reported by now, I’m pretty sure.
When so many bomb alarms have been sounded in various universities following the virginia tech massacre, it is but inevitable that people tend to be ‘extra careful’ / ‘extra suspicious’ . If there is anyone to blame, it is the conservatives and the media who have brainwashed america to be hateful towards all Muslims and constantly label them the ‘enemy’. I don’t blame America for ‘living on the edge’ either … these bomb threats/massacres happen almost everyday !
Terrorists across the world screaming ‘death to america’ aren’t doing us any good at all either. As long as there are terrorists in the world of Middle-Eastern descent, we will be on the back foot in America … And sadly ‘Racial profiling’ is here to stay, because let’s face it guys: No white woman has terrorized america … No caucasian has blown up anything here … It’s a sad reality, though it sucks BIG TIME for the brown man.
Of course things can happen anywhere, you can get stung by a bee any where. However, it is more likely if you live next to the hive.
Here and here.
I’m surprised that so many people are essentially assigning collective guilt to browns and Muslims by saying “this is all the fault of terrorists” – poets and folks like your parents are going about their everyday lives and certainly don’t see themselves as in any way related to the 9/11 bombers.
The cops really overreacted with the questioning about what country the guy was from. They should have just asked him to open up the box and he could have taken out all the papers and waved them in their faces.
Sai said:
Well stated.
In the mid 90’s the Milita movement in the middle of the United States was starting to make noize. Little groups were popping all over the country, with most in the midwest. Timothy Mcveigh has spend some time around a few of these people.
Yet after the Oklahoma city bombing, many people in these movement were shocked about what happened and left those groups, and the milita movemnet died down not long after the McVeigh bombing Oklahoma city.
Yet after 9/11 there has been, Madrid Spain, and London England. Plus don’t forget those 17 men almost a year ago in Toronto who were planning a attack.
It’s not about assigning guilt, it’s about assessing root of the fears, rational or not of the greater population, and how that leads to stereotyping and profiling. That has to be attributed to 9/11, right or wrong, it is the reality. Blaming others does nothing to correct the root problem.
I thought this line was particularly poetic:
Moral of the Story: Stop recycling.
Green Angel, glad you noticed that — I thought Ali’s account was very nicely written. Perhaps I should have stressed that a bit more in my post…
Incidentally, he’s had it published today at Inside Higher Ed.
Please. As Camille noted in another thread, that’s a bit of an ahistorical view of things. It simply isn’t as if all was hunky-dory before Sept. 11, and then that happened, and everything went wrong. Stuff happened before Sept. 11 too. Yet, the year 2001 was also relevant in other ways. Demographic trends among South Asians – whether from immigration, native-born cohorts achieving adulthood, or from the huge increase in pre-Y2K work visas – were leading to a higher level of visibility in the general population, and therefore, a greater degree of resentment vis-a-vis South Asians was building up. Outsourcing (“offshoring”) which really came into its own in the post-Y2K recession, also added another dimension to the resentment, so it would be a mistake to ascribe everything to the post-Sept 11 mentality, real though that is.
the part that really bothers me is the lack of official acknowledgement that a blunder had taken place. and i used to think pofessors were respected types, you know like back in the old country.
Thanks for posting this.
While this entire incident does not surprise me, the funny thing is what outrages me the most is this: “The university president appreciated my distress about the situation but denied that the call had anything to do with my race or ethnic background”
I think I could deal with racial profiling if the powers that be came right out and told us that this is what we as brown people should expect in light of the troubling times.
Its the hypocrisy and lies and double-speak that gets to me ….along with the ignorance
er… thats me @ #67 above …Monday morning and I can’t spell my own name
C’mon, you read this blog right? The worst ever school attack was by a politically motivated suicide bomber, a guy who was a white Catholic. He killed elementary school children, and then waited and set off more explosives to kill not only himself but the rescuers as well. Luckily, another 500 lbs of explosive didn’t go off. This was an attack he planned for a year!
Exactly. The same thing happens at the airports when I’m the only one who is “randomly” selected for a baggage check before boarding. I don’t mind being searched again, but I’d want them to tell me the truth instead of the usual “random selection” crap.
This statement is a microcosm for most of America. One one hand it’s saying, “We’re the land of the free, home of the brave, stand for freedom and equality of all people” and on the other hand it’s, “What do you expect us to do? All the 9/11 hijackers were arab! At least we don’t chop off your dicks for looking the wrong direction, like in your home country! So shutup and kiss the ground you’re even here!”
It’s constant pendulum, where one end its, “We’re all together tra la la la” and the other end it’s an extreme “Us vs them mentality, where we were here first, and we’re trying to protect our own…”
Maybe I watch too much V for Vendetta and Children of Men, but I am beginning to feel really hopeless/overwhelmed by the status quo in the U.S.
Also, thanks chachaji 🙂 I was going to bring up the same point – brown people have been targets of backlash for numerous events that they had nothing to do with. I think Sai (?) mentioned this earlier in the thread.
I, too, think that people should be held accountable for false reporting. There is a difference between this incident and Cho. In the latter case there was a body of evidence that the guy was disturbed. In this event only one thing happened – a brown man dropped off a box of recycling. These aren’t the same kinds of incidents, and I think it’s unuseful to compare. There really aren’t any comparisons. Even law enforcement specialists can tell you that racial profiling is NOT an effective way of deterring crime. Observing “suspicious activity” is a better way of figuring stuff out, but if you think something is suspicious purely on the basis of someone’s skin color, you should think a little harder!
Also, I think bringing up the “be thankful we even let you in this country” argument is a bunch of bullshit. I am sick of hearing that brown and black people should kiss the establishment’s ass and be thankful they are even allowed to be here. This is ridiculous for about 1 million reasons. To pull out my privilege card, I am a U.S. citizen, and I am entitled to the full rights and benefits as EVERYONE ELSE in this country, including a blonde-haired blue-eyed Bible-loving kid from Nebraska. Anything less is unacceptable, and it is important and necessary that people say something to that effect. Just because I’m not being burned in an oven doesn’t mean that I should accept and defer to my my supposedly acceptable and “lesser” status as a brown woman in the U.S.
I just thought that I would point out that according to my eco-footprint, if everyone in the world lived like me, we would need 6.6 planets. And if there were 6.6 of me, we would need 39.9 planets. And that would be cool.
For people pooping in their pants because of the random brown man terrorist out to get them, reading this might put things in some perspective.
Sorry, in the middle of my invective I forgot to post how I felt about this article. Firstly, Amardeep, thank you. I got this last night in my email and was really moved. I know many of us have heard these stories, but it was so well-written and human that I felt incredibly empathetic/sympathetic and emotionally moved by Dr. Ali. Sometimes when these things happen it’s hard to remember the humanity and human face behind everything – this article doesn’t let you forget, and I appreciate that.
70, the sample space for the random selection isn’t all of humanity, it’s the set of all brownies. You’d have been a randomly-selected-brown-dude..
DJ Drrrty Poonjabi:
Where did you learn this falsehood that blacks are eligible for quotas in India?
This is an interesting discussion. I think it would have been really great if his friend, when responding to the question of what country he is from, had she responded that is is from England, what would have happened? Interesting, I think. I’m sorry for what happened to him, though.
Unfortunately those who engage in racial profiling and those who defend them in the name of “security” will never admit it. My father would routinely get pulled over by cops wanting to pick a fight with him (this was pre 9/11) just because he’s a brown guy driving a white woman around in a car. Most of the time there wasn’t even a justifiable offense to be pulled over for. My friend and admired classmate from my MFA program, a self described “humungous black guy” had made a very astute observation after 9/11 regarding air travel with his considerably lighter (also african american) wife: “It used to be that every time we were at the airport I would get searched, like, 5 times. I mean, I guess, huge black guy, right? Now I’m not sure how to react because they don’t even look at me anymore and just pull _____ to the side!” (referring to how his wife is now often profiled as a “middle eastern looking person.”)
As for Cho, much of the reason he was not detained for suspicious behavior and his basic threat to safety involves laws that protect the rights of the mentally ill. It used to be that you could be thrown into an institution and possibly never see the light of day again based on very spurious diagnosis. Women often were given lobotomies or hysterectomies for becoming too opinionated or emotional. Cho simply did not fill enough criteria under the current law to be held for treatment against his will. There was a poignant article on sfgate.com about the laws where a woman’s psychotic son refused treatment and tried to kill her several times but was still not forced into treatment until she called the police and had him arrested. Then, he ended up in jail, treated for a few weeks, and was released again. It is sad that this happened all in a time when the country is spending so many resources on “homeland security” yet they will not look at the mental health laws and try to make them as fair as possible for both the mentally ill and the general public. A homeland cannot expect to be very secure when true threats are ignored and imagined threats are acted against swiftly.
Although students across the country have been asked to be vigilant, Cho did not drop off a suspicious box anywhere. He went on a gun rampage. Suspicious packages reporting is, from what I remember, usually urged when talking about terrorists both pre and post 9/11 (remember the Unabomber?) So this is what makes it clear to me that it was racial profiling rather than simple post-gun-rampage vigilance. I wish professor Ali hadn’t had to deal with it.
What is really sad is the fact that the professor (at least from his account) was a familar sight to the security folks since he walked down the same hallway everyday to class. And how many Indian professors (or people) walked by that hallway that they could not use simple judgement to identify a regualr?
i empathize with kazim ali. i would be angry too.
but the white house has had several years and a press cowed into submissive stenography to come up with a coherent casus belli. even with the advantage of a shameless willingness to “recycle” a variety of well known lies; the support of the hate-radio industry; and roger ailes’ FOX “news” whipping the faithful into an orgy of xenophobia, it has consistently failed.
frankly, i find mr. ali’s apparent surprise at their success in spreading hysterical fear amongst the hoi polloi quite naive. it is not accidental…
@Ennis , #69
Come on, quoting an act of terrorism 80 years ago to prove that whites are equally as guilty ? The people who are alive in the world today ( and prone to profile people ) will have a memory of the last 10 years at best … and quite frankly the last 10 years have been pathetic for the image of Middle eastern people.
No one is bothered about historical perspective … No one is going to read history books to search for White terrorists/bombers … in the last decade we have seen so many terrorist acts by Al-Qaeda .. in US, UK, Madrid, the train bombings in India (purportedly by islamist elements in Pakistan), the list goes on and on… all by brown middle-eastern men.
Racial profiling is a consequence of these events … and racial profiling saves lives. Can you imagine what would have happened if the police went by ‘equality’ and spent half their time interrogating old white women? There would be countless more terrorist acts that would never be foiled!
Plz Note that I am in NO WAY justifying these senseless acts of vigilance by hyper civilians, and I am very sorry about what happened to our comrade at the University… I am merely attaching a logical reason to this state of affairs.
No, in fact, racial profiling has been shown to be very ineffective. Why? because the people bent on committing the crimes aren’t idiots. They know what the profile is, so they actively seek people to skirt by that profile. Like for example, this guy.
Whats to stop Al Qaeda from aligning themselves with African muslims, people who’d be identifiable as “black” in the US, or with lifelong white supremists like David Duke to conduct attacks against Jewish populations or Black churches or what have you? Boom. Your super duper intelligent “go for the Turban” strategy is foiled.
And, all the “foiled” acts you can point to, occured for one of two reasons
Your logical reason is anything but.
And don’t act as if whites were committing such acts in large proportion, they’d be under equal scrutiny by the law, and even general American society.
Take a look at school shooters:
Out of 16 listed as “well known”, 13 of them are white. According to you, this should be sufficient evidence to question, interrogate, search disproportionately and generally harass any and every white male in middle and high school that makes even a remote insinuation about violence, guns, or death.
Why is it when such statements are made, America is quick to brand it as “racist” yet when the opposite is made, it’s “logical reason” and “good security”?
@HMF
No one can deny that Al-Qaeda recruits are predominantly middle-eastern. I don’t buy your argument that a white/asian/hispanic person is as likely to be affiliated to the al-qaeda as a middle-eastern man. Taken to an extreme, its like saying that a black guy is as likely to be part of the KKK as a white guy, which is absurd.
The cost of having an innocent person feel bad (like how most of us feel at our extra security check at the airport) is not as great as the cost of the potential loss of life if a real terrorist gets by the security gate because the security guy is busy with the old chinese couple’s belongings.
too bad he writes like a lonely fifteen year old. Never mind his recycling. He doesn’t belong on campus because he’s a jackass. Furthermore, he experienced no injury and in fact profitted by being able to jump on his corny high horse and burp out his little oppressed nonsense.
That’s not what Im saying at all. the KKK’s only purpose for existence is to harass, intimidate, and eventually rid the US of black people. Why would they recruit a black person to do that? (Unless he was this guy)
And I’m not saying Al Qaeda will make non-muslims people bonafide card carrying members. But this statement cannot be made any simpler: They are not idiots, they KNOW THE PROFILE.
That’s why the many of the recent people who were caught as operatives in the US since 9/11, weren’t arab, weren’t turbaned, weren’t bearded, and some were even pale enough to not be immediately classified “brown.”
When did I ever say “as likely” I am saying however, it’s not unreasonable for people with common goals to forge temporary alliances.
If you read Kazim Ali’s original post, it seems that he was only questioned VIA telephone…no storm troopers invaded his home. He wasn’t taken downtown or anything…yes, it seems a certain amount of commotion was caused on campus, but he wasn’t even physically present (unless I’m reading it wrong). So on further reflection, I’m thinking maybe this whole thing has been blown out of proportion…by Ali himself. I don’t think the police or campus guards really acted that egregiously. If anything, yes a case could be made that the ROTC guy was too hyper in sounding an (uncecessary) alarm.
Too many simplifications in this paragraph of yours. The ratio is not 1:1. It’s not that “one” innocent person “feels bad”. There are hundreds and thousands of people who are subject to such profiling. “Feeling bad” is not the correct word to describe the trauma that they could undergo at times. Far more scarier is the scenario when law-enforcement starts misusing these tactics.
Heck, they may even link up with 14 year old school girls…
Not to thread-jack (sorry, Amardeep!) but any updates on the Sikh veteran who was reportedly assaulted in Chicago? Ennis, Ennis? You out there?
Amitabh, they did shut down campus and call the bomb squad. (That’s also in the York Dispatch article) And he was questioned in front of a crowd of onlookers — which I would construe as humiliating, especially if it’s happening at your workplace.
He says only the state trooper interviewed him over the phone.
What an ignorant statement. What was Timothy McVeigh’s race? He blew up a government building in Oklahoma not that long ago. Everyone remembers it. Except you. I bet you havent heard of the Unabomber either.
Most spree shooters, child pornographers and child molestors in America have been white men. Perhaps all schools, and neighborhoods with children, should racially profile white men? Why not?
Sheer ignorance. The Bali bombers were Indonesian malays. The foiled shoe bomber was a black jamaican-white british hybrid. The UK and subcontinental bombings were the work of south asian men. The bombings in Russia are the work of white Chechen muslims from the Caucasus Mountains. White, black and hispanic members of Al-Qaeda have been caught. You seem to be ignorant of the fact that Islam is a worldwide religion with large numbers of followers from every race on earth.
Whats utterly absurd is your analogy. Muslims are not a race and Islam is not a racist organization like the KKK. There are 10s of millions of muslims who are white caucasians, black africans, tan malays, yellow asians….and Al-Qaeda has representatives of these non-profiled races amongst it membership.
Profiling middle-eastern and south asian looking young men, and men with muslim names, can make the job of muslim terrorists more difficult. But not impossible. It makes more sense to selectively target and profile the small minority of muslims who are members of organizations that support terrorism or jihad; and their friends and relatives. And even muslims who frequent mosques whose preachers openly preach hate and violence should be red flagged. The West has to make a crucial existential decision: can it afford to be tolerant of religious intolerance and religious fanaticism. Its own bloody history shows how pernicious fanatical religious fundamentalism can be.
Duh. I guess he was free to hang up anytime without any consequences. Silly fellow, no?
“It makes more sense to selectively target and profile the small minority of muslims who are members of organizations that support terrorism or jihad; and their friends and relatives. And even muslims who frequent mosques whose preachers openly preach hate and violence should be red flagged. “
Only two ways do this: (i) the police must be a big brother or (ii) the police must have a network of informers.
A different question is: Why should it be the police who monitor poor immigrant Muslims? Why not a team of psychologists? If the root cause of terrorism is alienation, the solution must be psychologists.
46,
GGK ?? Are you the same GGK who used to post comments here more than a year back?? If so welcome back.
DJ dirty, good catch, but they are not the only “browns” in the military. I work with a Major Singh, and we had a Captain Pinto (originally from Goa) here when I arrived. Both are ROTC products. And the medical command now has a Major Patel. Dr. Singh may have been a periodontist, but he was the commander of the local dental command, which means he was the direct supervisor of all military dentists in Korea. Black, White, Brown, or otherwise. So he was the guy that either wrote, or “chopped” on, the fitness reports that got them promoted, sent to schools, or earmarked for release from the army.
Fascism is the merger of state with corporation.
America is a fascist country in that aspect, without exception.
Please, like I didn’t know that. The point is the perceptions and the reactions that occur since 9-11, as a result of the actions of the terrorists. It’s too bad more people can’t just buck up and say that a lot of the problems we have to deal with is the result of a few assholes flying planes into a civilian building rather than take up their issues with the people they actually have the issue with.
Please don’t lecture me on all the reasons that profiling and stereotyping are wrong, I know themm, and agree with them, but that doesn’t change reality. Randomizer said it quite well, read it and understand that even though we may know better, its all still true – accept it and blame the people who perpetuate it – whether it be the 9/11 terrorists or any that came before or after.
Back up a minute, y’all. Some idiot calls the police, who investigate as they must. Honestly, are the police NOT going to investigate a report of a suspicious package? The police overreact a bit, cancelling classes and evacuating a few buildings, but the “suspect” isn’t even detained…he explains the situation over the phone, during which time a police office says something stupid (maybe- there’s some missing context in that officer’s quote. My suspicion is that the officer interviewing Mr. Ali either expressed himself poorly and/or was misunderstood. I also suspect that the question “What country was he from?” was probably meant to establish the validity of the “tip” and not for any overtly racist reason.)
So the tipster is a racist idiot, maybe even the police officer is a paranoiac incipient SS trooper. But the key sentence in the post was “fortunately it ended without further incident, and Ali was released.” You can’t even really say he was “realeased,” since it appeared he was never “held.” The guy’s civil rights were not violated, he does not appear to be facing any sanctions from the university, and his friends on the faculty stuck up for him.
This is not “fascism.” It’s a case of the typical assholery of everyday life, exacerbated by the fact that it was three days after the VTech massacre. Yeah, going through all that must have sucked, and I sympathize with the guy, but anyone claiming that this is an example of “fascism” just doesn’t understand the meaning of the word. If there’s any lesson to be learned here, it’s that “the world is full of stupid people,” the tipster being Exhibit A.
Speedy
The only way to escape the unending gauntlet of indignities, sleights, and general reminders of your unwelcome-ness in this country is for you, your parents, your grandparents, and your uncle Veeshnew to all return to the Desh that you are all so fond of.