My father recalled a story about his younger years living in North Dakota. He had come from a small village in Lebanon where he was raised.
He had come to the US to live and work with his father who had homesteaded on a piece of land in the prairies of North Dakota. In those days, everyone from Lebanon, Syria and Palestine who had immigrated to the United States was referred to as a “Syrian.”
A “Syrian” acquaintance of my father had been arrested for some minor offense and was scheduled to go to court for trial. This friend decided to get the best lawyer that money could buy to defend him. That attorney was William Langer, later to become a legend in North Dakota history. “Wild Bill” Langer would become governor of North Dakota and later served nearly 20 years as a US senator.
His notoriously maverick ways led to his impeachment as governor and he was one of only two US senators who voted against American entry into World War II. Langer never followed the ordinary ways.
Langer told his accused client to appear at the courthouse for his trial with about 10 of his “Syrian” friends. He instructed them to all sit in the front row of the courthouse next to the accused. When the judge and the prosecuting attorney came into the courtroom, Langer challenged the prosecutor. He said, “I want you to identify the accused to the judge” and then Langer asked everyone in the front row to stand including the accused.
The prosecutor stated that he had no problem identifying the alleged criminal and looked at the row of standing men. After some embarrassing moments of flustered viewing, he stated,”There, that’s the man” and pointed right at my father. Langer then asked the real accused criminal to identify himself and after he did and it was clear that the prosecutor had no idea of who he was identifying. The prosecutor then spurted out, “How can you tell those ‘Syrians’ apart. They all look the same to me.” The judge dismissed the case.
This week, CNN reported that following a private presidential meeting with Republican senators behind closed doors, Sen. Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, the former Senate Majority leader, commented that he thought that the press is too obsessed with the Iraq conflict and the religious differences among Iraqis make the conflict very difficult for him to understand.
“It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people,” Lott said. “Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.”
Obviously, the perception of some government officials hasn’t changed much in the eight decades since my father’s experience in the court. And racist and bigoted statements of this kind apparently aren’t limited to Republicans.
In the heated race for the US Senate seat in Virginia, incumbent Republican Sen. George Allen is not the only candidate accused of racist statements and actions concerning African-Americans and Indian-Americans. His Democratic opponent, Jim Webb, allegedly has been accused of similar actions and statements made against African-Americans throughout his career. And the list goes on and on. They all look the same.
The real damage, however, of these racist and bigoted incidents goes well beyond words and thoughts. Let’s take, for example, another incident that also happened this week. According to the Associated Press, a Spanish professor with a “long beard and dark complexion” was forced off an airliner during a layover on the Spanish island of Mallorca by passengers who feared that he was an “Islamic terrorist”.
Pablo Gutierrez Vega told the AP that he was humiliated when three German passengers on an Air Berlin flight approached him on a layover and asked to search his carry-on luggage. The men told him that other passengers were frightened by his appearance, said Gutierrez Vega, a 35-year-old law professor at the University of Seville.
“They treated me like an Islamic terrorist because of my appearance,” Gutierrez Vega said, according to an account posted on the website of the newspaper El Pais. They all look the same. The incident was later resolved by the pilot but Gutierrez Vega is allegedly suing the airline. This columnist reported a couple of similar incidents in the Arab News earlier this year which led to much more serious consequences.
We reported, “Let’s go back to the shootings in 2005 of the American citizen of Costa Rican heritage, Rigberto Alpizar, and Brazilian citizen Jean Charles de Menezes by American and British security officers in Miami and London respectively. Official reports issued on the killings of both men indicated that they were exhibiting “suspicious behavior” and were eventually killed because of their behavior. Alpizar, on an airplane, and de Menzes, in a subway, were judged to be “suspected” terrorists by the officials who killed them although, after their deaths, neither weapons nor bombs were found on either man and no “terrorist” connections have surfaced from either case. The common thread in both cases appeared to be that both men were “dark-skinned” and running.
And, in the case of de Menzes, wearing a “heavy coat” in the summer was stated as one of the justifications for targeting him. Later pictures showed that de Menzes was wearing a normal denim jacket. They all look the same. Racism and bigotry exist everywhere but those concepts need to be struck from public policy. Public officials who exhibit racism and bigotry must be removed from office and not be allowed into office. And you know what? Racism, discrimination and bigotry all look the same to those who have experienced it.
