The horrendous and cowardly acts of the bombing of the Boston Marathon have claimed many victims and shown us many heroes!
Unfortunately for one person, a Saudi man, he was victimized twice. Once by the bomber and then again by the right wing fear machine. The NY Post, with the help of Fox news, Vicki Mckenna, various right wing bloggers, "tea party" hero Congressman Steve King, Glenn Beck, Senator Susan Collins, and various other right wing conspiracy theory "news" websites.
All of the fear that these crazies keep projecting on the impressionable base that they have led to more hell than deserved for this poor person. As described in this brilliant piece in the New Yorker by Amy Davidson.
A twenty-year-old man who had been watching the Boston Marathon had his body torn into by the force of a bomb. He wasn’t alone; a hundred and seventy-six people were injured and three were killed. But he was the only one who, while in the hospital being treated for his wounds, had his apartment searched in “a startling show of force,” as his fellow-tenants described it to the Boston Herald, with a “phalanx” of officers and agents and two K9 units. He was the one whose belongings were carried out in paper bags as his neighbors watched; whose roommate, also a student, was questioned for five hours (“I was scared”) before coming out to say that he didn’t think his friend was someone who’d plant a bomb—that he was a nice guy who liked sports. “Let me go to school, dude,” the roommate said later in the day, covering his face with his hands and almost crying, as a Fox News producer followed him and asked him, again and again, if he was sure he hadn’t been living with a killer.When this particular injured person was running away from the bomb and looking for help with his injuries he was treated differently:
Why the search, the interrogation, the dogs, the bomb squad, and the injured man’s name tweeted out, attached to the word “suspect”? After the bombs went off, people were running in every direction—so was the young man. Many, like him, were hurt badly; many of them were saved by the unflinching kindness of strangers, who carried them or stopped the bleeding with their own hands and improvised tourniquets. “Exhausted runners who kept running to the nearest hospital to give blood,” President Obama said. “They helped one another, consoled one another,” Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, said
In the midst of that, according to a CBS News report, a bystander saw the young man running, badly hurt, rushed to him, and then “tackled” him, bringing him down. People thought he looked suspicious.
What made them suspect him? He was running—so was everyone. The police reportedly thought he smelled like explosives; his wounds might have suggested why. He said something about thinking there would be a second bomb—as there was, and often is, to target responders. If that was the reason he gave for running, it was a sensible one. He asked if anyone was dead—a question people were screaming. And he was from Saudi Arabia, which is around where the logic stops. Was it just the way he looked, or did he, in the chaos, maybe call for God with a name that someone found strange?At this point is when the true piling on began, some lunatic Ayn Randian blogger practically had this kid tried and convicted. Then Fox news did what they do best....start talking bullshit and stirring up the fears of their loyal followers:
“There must be enough evidence to keep him there,” Andrew Napolitano said on “Fox and Friends”—“there” being the hospital. “They must be learning information which is of a suspicious nature,” Steve Doocy interjected. “If he was clearly innocent, would they have been able to search his house?” Napolitano thought that a judge would take any reason at a moment like this, but there had to be “something”—maybe he appeared “deceitful.” As Mediaite pointed out, Megyn Kelly put a slight break on it (as she has been known to do) by asking if there might have been some “racial profiling,” but then, after a round of speculation about his visa (Napolitano: “Was he a real student, or was that a front?”), she asked, “What’s the story on his ability to lawyer up?”
These people are just disgusting, but I digress. There is a reason that David Sirota wrote a piece on how he hopes that the bombing was done by a white American. After we see the way the right wing in this country tried and convicted an innocent and injured kid in less than a few hours, with absolutely no evidence but his skin color, I can only imagine the fear and hatred they will show towards all people of the same(or close) nationality of the person who actually did the bombing. Unless of course he is a right wing Christian warrior, then he will get a pass and anyone who brings it up will be attacked!
On a personal note, I hope that Paul Fischer sues and gets a restraining order against Brian Sikma. The way that he is stalking and harrassing him is very creepy. Also I know Brian Sikma isn't the brightest bulb on the tree, but if he spent a couple minutes on google, he would find out that Patriot's Day IS an important day for the right wing militia movements AND that the right wing militia movements and hate groups have risen 813% since President Obama took office.
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