Gunman kills immigrant in Arizona
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But he was wearing a turban! And he talked funny!
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I don’t see a debate here. Just a sad tale of what an ignorant moron can do.
How disgusting, bigotry at its usual worst.
An Afghan taxi driver has been badly beaten up in London too. Sadly we call all expect lots more of this stuff.
No, jackass, you don’t.
–Cliffy
And they quoted Mesa, Arizona’s mayor as saying
You’d think we wouldn’t have to tell people that. Morons.
Not to mention he probably had a swarthy complexion!
Is Sodhi the latest casualty from Tuesday’s attacks? Or the first in the “New War”?
(Ugh. I just realized how that “first casualty of the New War” bit sounds like I’m paralleling John Birch, ostensibly the first casualty of the Cold War. Sorry, folks.)
My Indian friends have been instructed by their temple to not wear any traditional clothes except for saris, because everything else could lead to trouble. Men have been advised to shave their beards and not venture out in public with turbans. Their temple has decided not to send their disaster releif team to New York out of fear. Despite all that, they still caught a deranged man trying to break into a Hindu temple!
I can’t believe any of it! Apparently all of those US flags flying out there actually mean that you have no need to understand the rest of the world, because only Americans (Americans that don’t vaguely resemble people of middle eastern orgin, that is) seem to count.
The casualties on the homefront now include an Egyptian in San Gabriel, CA. Not a Muslim, but a Coptic Christian. Keep shootin’ guys! Yer bound to hit one of the bad guys eventually!
“Apparently all of those US flags flying out there actually mean that you have no need to understand the rest of the world, because only Americans (Americans that don’t vaguely resemble people of middle eastern orgin, that is) seem to count.”
Ah, now I’ve got it! People haven’t been putting up the flag to show solidarity and national pride after an attack on the country, they’re being put up by white Americans as a message to Americans of Middle Eastern descent that they’re unwelcome. :rolleyes:
Yup! I’m in Arizona right now, about 5 miles from where this travesty occured. Also, last wednesday in Phoenix a couple “dive bars” put up signs that say ‘we don’t serve arabs’.
The horrible part of all this is that ignorant Americans are still thick as theives. We need to do better dopers. We need to launch a unified fight against ignorance. We are doing well though, we just need more people against ignorance.
The weird part is people are still hard wired patriots, but being a patriot does not mean you can’t be ignorant.
I cried when I turned on the news the other morning and saw this. I live in the Phoenix area and I’m devestated that this has happened. There was a middle-eastern college student at ASU who was beaten up and egged as well.
I want to hold the hand of every countryman who’s being rejected and punished for the crimes that hurt them just as much as the rest of us.
People are so blind sometimes… There were Arab-Americans in that building. There were Muslims and Atheists and Christians and Jewish people and black people and Indians etc in those planes and in those towers and on those streets and buried in a massive grave covered with tons of steel and papers and tears.
It just kills me.
My heart goes out to their families.
I was thinking about this and I’d like to say:
So what if he was a Sikh?
So what if he had been a Muslim?
So what if he had actually been a Muslim of Afghan origin?
Fact is, he was an innocent person going about his business peacefully, the discussion of what he was or wasn’t is almost a distraction from the fact that his death was an act of completely unreasonable violence.
Pardon me, Mangetout. I never meant any disrespect to any other crime victims. But surely you can see the special poignancy. These men were killed not just because of the usual homicidal impulse, but because of hatred spawned by terrorism. Not only were they not in any way guilty of the Sept. 11 attacks – they weren’t even the targets the perpetrators were looking for.
It’s sad that these men were killed. It’s doubly sad that they were killed not just because of inhumanity, but because of ignorance.
Saying it now, though, I can see how it sounds as though I’m saying it would have been better if an actual Muslim or Arab had been killed. By no means should anyone think that’s what I mean.
Ugh. If it serves to provide any consolation, my local dive bar just permanently banned one of its (now former) regulars for using a revolting epithet to refer to people of middle eastern descent.
Another bar across town is reputed to have done the same thing.
So the message is getting out. But you’re right; it’s getting out too slowly.
On the list of macabre stuff that I shouldn’t laugh at (especially this week) but did anyway… this one is high up there.
TheeGrumpy: My post wasn’t directed at you or anyone in particular at all; it was (as much as anything) a reminder to myself about the arbitrary nature of the way in which we group people.
(Why the human obsession with categorising things?)