Is it ok that this HAS BECOME the price of being brown in America?

there around 1 million brown americans, right?

assume before 9-11 that 200 brown people were targeted on racial grounds.
after 9-11 20,000 were.

that's a 100 fold increase. but in the second case, only 1 out of 50 people have been targeted on racial grounds.

so it depends on how you look at it. we aren't jews in germany after 1932, and we shouldn't act as if we are. hell, we aren't even blacks in alabama in 1962, and we shouldn't pretend as if we are.

the topography of answers to the question of being brown after 9-11 is characterized by more than two locations, but in debates and arguments it seems not be be able to break out of that box. i won't generalize from my banal and carefree existence to yours, but doon't generalize from your hell to mine. we need to look at the full distribution of experiences and see how powerful the systemic shift has been.

Thanks for a great opening post, and welcome!

Honestly, all of these incidents bother me--whether it's for being brown, for wearing a t-shirt, or for having a strange religion. If pointing out the brown aspect helps rally our community--an affluent, well-resourced community--to cohere in with the rest of the movement to maintain civil rights and civil liberties, then yes, let us point this out. But let us not fight for a day when every desi can go to Capitol Hill unmolested, but white punk rockers or black union organizers cannot. Let us fight for a day when all Americans have their civil rights respected, equally.

Ah, Razib, you wouldn't be as sanguine about this if you were a Sikh in middle America. I can count probably 8 cases of harassment and one of profiling in the last 6 months or so ... no, this didn't happen before 9-11.

That said, yes, the situation for browns or even Sikhs in the US is a far way from that of blacks in ALabama in the 1950s of Jews in Germany in the 1930s. Still, if we lower the bar too much, we end up damaging American democracy with our meagre expectations.

You mean the soft bigotry of low expectations?

Ah, Razib, you wouldn't be as sanguine about this if you were a Sikh in middle America. I can count probably 8 cases of harassment and one of profiling in the last 6 months or so ... no, this didn't happen before 9-11.

this is true. most of the "anti-muslim" harrassment my parents have seen in the seattle area is directed toward sikhs. so, not to trivial, but what are the % of sikhs in america among browns? after all, one of the cues people take to trigger "this is a terrorist" is turban.

assume before 9-11 that 200 brown people were targeted on racial grounds. after 9-11 20,000 were. that's a 100 fold increase. but in the second case, only 1 out of 50 people have been targeted on racial grounds.

I don't think it is fair to only look at acts that are at the level of what happened to this anonymous Indian-American. I was never given a second look on the metro in DC, and I don't think Annawas getting them either. After 9/11 things have changed drastically, and I don't think this an overstatement. I agree with you razib, we aren't jews in Nazi Germany after 1932, nor are we blacks in the Alabama of the 1950s and we shouldn't act like we are, but I don't think that should be the standard. I shouldn't walk down the street to go out to a bar in Adams Morgan only to have strangers on the street ask me if I am going to blow up the club. (Yes, that has happened). It's not just the more egregious acts of discrimination, but the singling out for questioning, the stares, the comments, and the underlying suspicion that must also be factored.

guys, just so you know, i'm not saying that ppl asking you if you are a terrorist is acceptable, or that it is OK that is normative, even if it happens once a year. but, one problem many minorities (race, sex orientation, etc.) is that they make analogies to the past. in the process, i think

1) they trivialize the struggles of past groups (jews, blacks, etc.)

2) they elicit false correspondences that don't exist

racism & discrimination exists, but the power of some rhetorical analogies is weak, and commenters (not posters) in many places routinely trot godwin-esque lines about "it is like the jews in germany."

I wont even walk by bars because the likelihood of being hassled out here is so high. And I have curtailed my movements, precisely to avoid ugly confrontations.

Once I had 3 incidents in one day, the first one with three kids (presumably college students) that I almost got into a fight with. This first incident was on a college campus, where I had gone for a tailgate, but it was pretty civilized over all, with lots of older alumni and tons of campus cops.

My point is simply that, having moved to a smaller urban center in the midwest, I now perceive threat even in places that I formerly thought of as being completely safe. I've been meaning to blog about this, but I'll just end by saying that I've found bigotry pretty pervasive in smaller town middle-America, and I wasn't expecting this at all. Civility hasn't been extended to me in the same way that it is for my white friends or coworkers.

You know, as Americans first off, we've been put in a very confusing and difficult conundrum following 9-11 and the ridiculous molestation of freedom and liberty by extremists. So along with the people, the government had to take very difficult and taxing decision on how to preserve our national security. Is such profiling especially on us brownies bad? Yea, sure... but what do you propose we do? I think being put in the situation we are, this is a very controversial issue, but i think theres a reasonable amount of civil liberties protection (once again, given the circumstances). Razib's numbers and Nazi Germany/Alabama examples do a good job of showing this. But hey, how isolated is this? i live in texas of all places, and i havent felt any personal discrimnation. sticky wicket, but so far so good i say... we've been unharmed for the past 5 years (almost...

and saheli... since when arent white punk rockers and black union organizers been deterred the chance to go to capitol hill?

All this discussion notwithstanding, it is completely unacceptable for the treatment that guy got for being brown and "so similar" to someone else that it took a team of professionals invasive procedures for 1 hour to figure it out! The case with the t-shirt also points to the same deterioration of civil liberties and the attitude of 'act first, never mind about research, apologize later'. Afterall, what can the private citizen do? I mean, really?

As for the misplaced comparison with 'jews in Germany', sure browns are not Jews. But then, its USA we're talking about not Germany either. I mean Germany was never a globally recognized beacon of freedom where the next decade would be built by today's immigrants. US was/maybe is. So I think the situation that exists today is quite bad.

But let us not fight for a day when every desi can go to Capitol Hill unmolested, but white punk rockers or black union organizers cannot.

HA. What political organizing world do you live in? Currently, even though our "affluent society" has a lot of resources, the only way we use our pull on the hill is to take pictures with Congress people, not to bring our issues to light. As it stands in the 2.2 millions South Asians in the US, I think the only paid lobbyist on Indian issues on the Hill is through the AAHoA (? The hoteleers Association), and personally speaking, I have more in common with the white punk rockers and black union organizers then them. And I will create the coalitions with the union organizers and punk rockers to help push for issues important to me, not to plow over them to get into the door first.

I guess my point is I think it needs to be rephrased- we are not "rallying because we are brown, to cohere to the rest of the movement to maintain civil rights"-- We are rallying because we are Americans that believe that "all men are created equal," and we have rights. And these rights were abused to us because we are brown, and if there are people with history in the civil rights movement that we can partner with in coalition to continue to fight to protect our civil rights, than by all means.

Call it the idealistic me, but I do beleive in the Constitution, Bill of rights, the Naturalization Act of 1946 that gave Asian Indians the right to vote, and the 19 Amendment that gave women the right to vote, the 1970 26th Amendment that changed the voting age to 18 from 21- These were all things that secured for me what it means to be an American- and as long as I see this violated, even in just one person, especially in the basis of race, I'm going to fight it.

Razib - routinely trot godwin-esque lines about "it is like the jews in germany."

Um, weren't you the first commentor on here, and didn't you bring ut up first?

brownpoliticker, that was a rhetorical flourish meant to invoke two groups that are not traditionally identified with desis--though of course there are desi punks and unionizers, and even desi whites and blacks. My point being that I see all of these things--whether on this site, which caters to the desi aspect of my identity, or to another site that caters to the scentific side, or another site that caters to the Democratic side---as examples of ways in which our civil liberties may be in trouble. Today it might be brown people, yester day it was Japanese, tomorrow it might be hapas. Who knows. I'm just saying, it's the principle that matters.

but what do you propose we do?

Oh I've got lots of ideas

1) scanning all the checked luggage and
checking people *randomly*
2)Spend more money on funding the Coast Guard and the Port Authorities better, and less on war.
3) Spend more money on all-purpose first responders like MMRS and less on war.
4) Actually act like we're sorry when we kill innocent people by mistake.
5) Try harder not to kill civilians with the excuse of "whereas . .. that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated" that's really just about completely wrong.
6)Relax and realize that terrorism is not, actually, that big a problem in the United States--that other countries that deal with it a lot more than we do are not all that obsessed with it--and we'd be a lot better off worrying more about things like hurricanes and earthquakes, and that general disaster preparation works quite well for terrorism preparation as well.

Uh, Taz, I think we basically agree. I may have just phrased it badly. My whole point was that we should do that, not just be satisfied when browns are treated alright.

I think this is the price one pays for being Indian - be killled by terrorists in India or be discriminated against everywhere else in the world.

"not just be satisfied when browns are treated alright."

Saheli,

Quite well said.

You know, I'll bet this guy is a big donor ... I wonder if he'll use that leverage / give some money elsewhere, or whether he figures the money and the harassment are just the cost of doing business.

of course, saheli terrorism is not a big problem in the united states... 9/11 wasnt a big problem, i mean other than the fact that we were so passive about our so called "fortress of security" and that bill clinton passed up an offer to take custody of osama from sudan following the uss cole attacks... and i guess the 3,000+ people that died are just collateral damage... since when is deliberately flying a plane into a building more excusable than unintended recipents of us attacks? we need to realize times are different and the govt is testing the ground to see what needs to be done and what is the most effective while at the same time preserving our rights and and liberties. i dont want to come off as sounding caustic or bitter, but i think we take our freedom for granted and unchecked idealism is creeping into our chapatis...

There are about 1.9 million" brown" people in US. And the sikh population is about 500,000.

My b'day happens to be on 9/11 and 9/11 happened only after about a month or so after I had joined grad school in Austin. I did not clelebrate my b'day for two years on Sept 11th for the fear of being mistaken for something else. By the tird time around i had plenty of good friends, locals being majority of them and they would have none of it when I expressed my apprehension. By God that b'day night on 9/11/2004 still remains the best day of my life I have never enjoyed myself so much and it all happened due to my American friends insistence that we do things which we would have normally done. Now that I have returned back to India and look at things I can incerely say that never once during my four year stay did I experience any unpleasant thing either directly or indirectly. Also another reason could have been that I was in Austin which is a pretty liberal and young town. Also on the flip side if it would have happened in india I am not sure we would have reacted in the same way. Anyway Shrubya's govt has thrown it all away by acting as chumps.

I'm not going to keep responding to you bp, but here's one more shot:

is not a big problem in the united states.

I did not say it is not a big problem. I said it is not that big a problem. Where that means--compared to what other countries suffer, compared to other dangers we face, and compared to our totally disproportionate tweaking of the response.

more excusable than unintended recipents of us attacks

Who said it was more excusable? Did I say it's more excusable? Don't put words in my mouth. I came up with a list of concrete things we could do to make terrorism less likely. The moral calculus there was thoroughly grounded in a realpolitik calculus. A little bit of apology goes a long freakin' way.

I have friends in the disaster preparation community--friends who deal withthe fires and earthquakes we will DEFINITELY suffer from, friends who would be among the first responders should a terrorist attack happened--and they are SO frustrated with the extent to which ANY disaster preparation funding/money has to be totally geared around terrorism--which is statistically still so incredibly unlikely--that it's really just sort of sapping their will to continue. Ever hear of a great American called FDR? The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Our obsession with terrorists is their biggest victory.

unchecked idealism is creeping into our chapatis...

I don't know about yours, dude, but my mother worked that idealism in with the flour and the water.