A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken a few days after the attacks showed that Americans were supporting special measures intended for those of Arab descent. In the survey, 58 percent backed more intensive security checks for Arabs, including those who are United States citizens, compared with other travelers; 49 percent favored special identification cards for such people, and 32 percent backed "special surveillance" for them. [...] The shooting death of an Egyptian-American grocer at his store near Los Angeles was being investigated on as a possible hate crime [...] In Phoenix, Prosecutor Rick Romley said Frank Silva Roque targeted minorities during a shooting rampage Saturday in which Balbir Singh Sodhi died. [...] And in Dallas, FBI agents were also investigating whether a Pakistani grocer's slaying stemmed from anger at Muslims for the terrorist attacks. [...] Thursday in Minneapolis, three Middle Eastern-looking men were denied permission to board a Northwest Airlines flight to their homes in Salt Lake City, Utah after several passengers complained of their presence [...] In Southern California, Arab students at Orange Coast College are calling for the institution to fire a professor who they say called one of them a terrorist ... The discussion in Hearlson's Tuesday class started when Hearlson compared Muslim students on campus to Nazis and said they shouldn't be trusted, according to CC Abdelmuti, a Muslim student in the class....
I keep waiting for something major to happen. Something so far beyond the pale, so utterly unforgiveable that it may jolt the country into realizing what it's doing.
They're already firebombing mosques in Canada, of all places. Attacks against Muslims reported in India, China and Australia, as well.
Maybe when/if the US attacks Afghanistan (or whoever), that will defuse something, make people a bit calmer. Although, frankly, my suspicion is that it will simply unleash something that's held itself in check until then.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!