by now we’ve all heard about the three arab-american men who were detained in south florida as terror suspects on the word of a vigilant eavesdropper. i remember hearing some of the early coverage, in which it was reported that explosives and trigger devices had been found, and phrases like Attack on Miami were bandied about. and by now we know that none of that was true. there have been allegations that the students deliberately made suspicious-sounding comments, but i find it highly unlikely that an arab-american would be foolish enough to make a joke about terrorism, in a public place. they claim that they were talking about having enough money to bring one of their cars down, which is plausible, and fairly easy to substantiate.
so we have a witness who heard them talking about ‘enough to bring it down’. we’re on high alert, so these things she heard out of context sounded menacing. she reported this, and law enforcement acted accordingly. and appropriately. no problem there, we do have to be vigilant, right? and there was an extremely thorough investigation, which turned up nothing. the men were released.
and now they are losing their internship opportunity because of this incident. ” Since Friday, the hospital has asked the students to transfer somewhere else after receiving numerous threats. Hospital president Dr. Jack Michel said Saturday his hospital has received an overwhelming number of e-mails and phone calls that he described as ‘threatening, ethnic, racial e-mails directed at Muslim-Americans.’ ”
the students don’t have a problem with the woman who reported what she heard, or the actions of law enforcement following that. they understand. that all went well, aside from the tremendously sensationalized news coverage. and i’m sure that it’s best that these students do their internship somewhere else, for their own safety.
however i find the thought of an overwhelming number of racist threats directed at these students, who did nothing wrong, incredibly disturbing.
I have been trying to make heads or tails out of that story for days.
Did this waitress make this whole thing up? They found nothing, and I too, find it hard to believe (with the current social climate) that any Middle Easterners would even think of cracking a joke like that… especially in one of the “redneck capitols of the world”.
Kind of reminds me of a a story we ran last year when the Feds cracked down on a credit card ring here in the Poconos run by Albanian Mobsters. Before you knew it “…with possible ties to Al-Quaida” were tagged to them in the stories because they were Muslim and from a region close to Afghasnistan.
They were mobsters looking to make money, and they sure as hell weren’t going to do anything to screw up the sweet scam they had going on. They didn’t give a shit about politics. Their nephew, still going to school here, is teased and abused on a daily basis over it.
Like this story, it’s gonna fade and no one will know it was all bullshit.
i’m sure she didn’t make it up, but i’m also sure selective hearing and a vividly racist imagination played a role in her reporting the conversation. in an interview, she prefaced her remarks with ‘now i’m not the type of person that eavsdrops’ which in my mind pegs her as *exactly* they type of person who does. it’s the first thing nosy busybodies say in cases like this.
she didn’t do anything wrong, she reported something that scared her — we are on an extra-scary color of alert, and we’re all jumpy. fine, we jumped, and found nothing. now, these young men are having to seek out other opportunities, who knows where they’ll be able to find an internship now.
this is quite similar to the Olympic bomber incident a few years back, in which an innocent man was tried and convicted by the media, and his life ruined, even though he did nothing wrong.
the irresponsible journalism is bad, but the fact that there are crazy racists sending emails is worse. (an earlier version of the CNN article quoted them, and they ran along the lines of ‘how could you let these people care for american lives’ and crap like that).
i regularly do business at a small (arab) family owned liquor store. i worry that they are the target of racism, by people that don’t know their history as i do — in fact they were sued a few years back because they painted over a mural on one of their stores with a big american flag. these guys are capitalists, good buisnessmen, and really into this country (the mural was an anti-smoking thing, and on a liquor store, well… business is business).
i would hope no one suspects them of anti-american leanings, based on their accents and appearance.
wow, i have a lot of babbling in me about this, huh?
I’m troubled by this too. I’m also bothered that the hospital asked them to do their internship somewhere else. If the three men had made that decision on their own, it would be fine, but instead, the hospital is allowing ignorant racist to determine hospital policy.
I just see the next generation of Americans looking back at this time with the same disgust as we look at the south during the civil rights marches of the 60′s or the U.S. during the McCarthy hearings. I don’t want to be one of those people that just stood quitely by while bad things are being done in my name, as an American.
me either, wKen. i’m deeply troubled that racism is so alive and well, and the effect it’s had on these young men’s lives. they were on their way to an internship! they talked about bringing cars down! i understand the misunderstanding but if there had been anything, anything at all amiss, that 17 hour investigation would have turned it up.
why the phonecalls and emails? what’s wrong with those people?
Fear. Fear brings out the stupidity in people.
the media coverage of this event fed into the fear and hysteria, in a big way. doesn’t justify the hatred expressed by those anti-arab-american callers and emailers, but it sure helped them along.
i still don’t understand how there could be such hatred directed at these young men, who were completely exonerated and released.
I remember someone in the Clinton W.H. (I think…maybe it was earlier, but given the intrusiveness of the Starr investigation I’m pretty sure I’m right) coming out of some hearings cleared of every accusation and saying plaintively, “where do I go to get my reputation back.” That might have been the saddest phrase I’ve ever heard.
These guys are going to be saddled with it for the rest of their lives. Richard Jewell, the Olympics guy (who reported his suspicions to the authorities in the first place, alerting them), now has a job as a cop somewhere, but still…
Richard Jewell was the name i would have mentioned if i’d done my research, but then again, i count on you for the details, Linkmeister
it’s a sad thing indeed when people are ruined in a trial by media.
“i count on you for the details”
Ha! Is that a weak reed to lean on!
um. yeah. so? it’s what you do. me? i just have general vague remembrances, you have all these facts and awesome investigative skills.
also i’m lazy. there’s that
“Fear. Fear brings out the stupidity in people.” – EXACTLY, Lee.
And amen, KD. This has bugged me from the VERY beginning of the incident.
(
but you didn’t hear it from me…
I’m full on sushi so mostly this is stuff other people said.
I was going to comment, but now I think I’ll just track it back and do an entry. Too long.
Racism of a different color
kd, that blogging champion, tossed something out about the three young men who were picked up and questioned after a
I agree. I find it disturbing too. The only thing is this. I would be pissed at anyone who mad e me have to wait seventeen hours because of something I didn’t do. That makes me suspicious of them, the fact that they didn’t get angry… I wonder if they’re trying to avoid attention… And why? Naw! I’m just kidding…. But I’d have been angry with the “nosy” woman still.
see, they understand because they’ve been arab-americans living here this past year. as one of the men said “we’re used to it, when we walk into a restaurant, all the conversation stops for a minute, and they all look nervously at us”. they understand that the woman was only ‘doing her patriotic duty’.
i’m sure, as Muslim-Arabic men living in the USA, they’ve had their share of worry that this would happen to them someday. hell, they’re probably worried we’ll put them in internment camps like we did to the Japanese in WWII.
I know it’s an old thread, but nonetheless: The Miami Herald just goes to town about press irresponsibility in its reporting this incident.