Shit, are we supposed to assume that every person speaking Spanish is making a drug deal? Sounds bigoted, possibly even racist and/or xenophobic, doesn't it?

Neither the clerk's behavior nor the police's is acceptable.

He a terrorism!!!1111

We gotta figure out what's going on!!!111

yup

what was the country of origin of the family? Also, given the country the guest was from, wouldn't he likely have been speaking his native language? How could the family member know what the guy was saying.

If you go out in public dressed like Aladdin, people might indeed call the fuzz. I'm not saying it's right or whatever, but it's not surprising in the wake of Orlando.

Same as with Paris last year, the killings in CA, the killers all dressed like everybody else.

No doubt.

But when you constantly hear the "if you see something, say something" public safety message - people will report things that *they* think are suspicious. So this clerk sees some dude in his cultural outfit and the clerk thinks he or she hears something about "ISIS". Next thing you know, the cops are involved.

So I call the police and turn you in because we don't like your kind.

Try that on and think about it for a while. You of course are perfectly innocent, but that doesn't matter, because you are convinced in a trial of public paranoia.

But unless you want to scrap the public safety message "see something, say something"...then it is what it is.

It is terribly flawed as was McCarthyism.

for banning gun ownership based on whether or not someone was included on a secretive government list. Willing to toss out due process protections for a piece of legislative security theater.

of a very, very small percentage.

They're the only demographic that this applies to.

Oh, and men. All men are potential rapists. We don't say it, but we really know we're talking about white men, amirite?

Hope all is well Tommy.

You sound just like the various people I have met over the years that thought it would be OK to queer-bash me because I had long hair, looked too femme etc.. I would like to pose to you the same questions that I posed to them: who the fuck do you think you are? What do you think gives you the right to tell other people how they should present themselves?

If you're going to throw out bigoted opinions like this, then please change your fucking avatar. The rainbow flag does not have a stripe for bigots.

So you're a coward basically. Oh, it's just your opinion that Middle Eastern clothes look like Aladdin costumes? Well it's just my opinion that you're a xenophobic bigot that chooses to hitch a ride on other people's bigotry while claiming to be above such things yourself.

Yeah, Aladdin was middle eastern so indeed his outfit was inspired by middle eastern garb.

I have nothing against foreign folks, but you know damn well had this clerk kept his or her mouth shut about a real terror threat people would be screaming about that too.

See something say something = racist

See something don't say something = politically correct response if nothing happens otherwise you are deemed an irresponsible coward.

People are getting too caught up about the dudes costume, the clerk thought the man was on the phone talking about ISIS. Why do you leave out that fact?

'the clerk thought the man was on the phone talking about ISIS'

Unless it turns out that the clerk is a fluent Arabic speaker, I think we can safely discount the clerk's supposed insight into the content of the conversation, because a Middle Eastern person speaking Arabic is suggestive of nothing more than one Arab having a telephone conversation with another Arab.

See, if you hear someone saying 'I'm a pissed-off Muslim, I feel like bringing down some divine wrath on this sinful world using this AR-15 I just bought' then you might well be correct to suspect the person is a radical Islamist. But if you just hear someone speaking Arabic, and you're not fluent in that tongue yourself, then for all you know they're debating whether to get take-out or cook dinner at home, or some other quotidian business or domestic matter.

If I see an orthodox Jew speaking Hebrew, should I assume he's plotting a takeover of the international banking system? That's a stupid question of course, but it's the same sort of stupidity you are bending over backwards to make excuses for.

Just so we're clear, here's some other instances where you should be wary of jumping to conclusions:

* You hear someone speaking Spanish - but they're probably not planning to smuggle people illegally over the Mexican border

* You see someone in a gay-pride t-shirt giggling with another person in a gay-pride t-shirt. Although this looks very suspicious to some chances are they are not conspiring to ass-rape anyone

* You see people attending a mosque on a Friday - but they're probably not calling for 'death to America' even though you saw some people in Iran doing that once on TV

I can't believe I'm having to explain these basic concepts to someone on DU. Frankly I think you'd be happier among a bunch of Trump supporters, who share your disdain of 'political correctness.'

I never said I was supportive of the nonsense, I just understand how something like this happens.

Weird crazy stuff that doesn't sound like it was written by people who would consider themselves "SJW types" at all. I hope to be enlightened.

Safe spaces, trigger warnings, the whole nine yards.

Say something, and you're wrong, and what, are you scared of your own shadow? Just leave people be. How do you leave the house each day?

Don't say something, and you're wrong, and what, are you not observant? Don't you pay attention to what other people say and do? How do you leave the house each day?

Say something, and you're right, you can look at yourself in the mirror. Don't say something, and you're right, well there's really no story there, that's just another day. There's no winning if you're wrong.

... as in, they liked trenchcoats and dusters and didn't care about the funny looks even after Columbine....

None of them got the cops called on them just for dressing a certain way.

It quickly becomes malicious against those one does not like.

Prosecutors claim they will not prosecute a crime without sufficient evidence, now throw in see something and you have the potential for hate fled indictment and retaliation incidents.


A local blog was discussing this, it was quite mixed and messed up.

Same with a lot of the other mass shooters and terrorists. Some people who knew Omar Mateen and heard him making homophobic remarks said they were scared to report it because he was muslim and they didnt want to be viewed as Islamophobic.

When those events occur, people ALWAYS ask the question, "Why didn't anyone notice or say anything?" The media will ask that question over and over and over again when an incident happens.

Between paranoia fed by the propaganda and maliciousness, it is very easy to tread on others civil liberties.

First if someone is speaking another language, it does not mean they are a terrorist or if they are not dressed like you are, they are not a terrorist.
Second, the law enforcement still has an obligation to review all the facts before acting. They need to make sure that someone's Islam phobia isn't the cause of the alert or did they really see them or hear them planning something.

If you see or hear someone say they are going to kill people is a little different than seeing someone wearing traditional middle eastern attire.

Just like the San Bernadino neighbor and the Florida co-workers with mateen.
Afraid to say anything because they feel they will pay the price, and they were probably right.

It's not worth it to say anything, jot down anything that might look important after the fact, but the old mantra of "didn't see or hear nothing" has kept a lot of people out of trouble.

Not worth losing a job or having cops in your face for. Why be viewed as a snitch, bigot or scare monger. CAIR will probably have this woman up on hate crime charges.

The age of the good samaritan died long ago.

Add the WDBJ7 shooter to that list where political correctness cost lives. He was a gay black guy that was allowed to run around like a nut at work and people were too scared to do shit about it. Had the authorities pulled him in on an involuntary committment, people would have screamed racism. Hell, the shooter screamed racism every chance he got.

Same thing with the Charleston shooter, his friends including his black friend knew something was up but they said "oh, those nutty statements were just a joke."

fuck that

and trolz

yup

How will they learn from that? Will it be tough to get another job? If so, aren't they just going to get bitter? Now if we think she really did it out of hatred of Muslims and there are a lot of potential customers who are Muslims, that might be one thing.

The stupid just gets too thick to deal with sometimes.

There should be a law against contributing to the stupidity of Americans.

In California. Last year we went and saw so many people dressed in Arab attire. In the Middle East areas it is so hot in August they come to Los Angeles to cool off. I loved some of the women's hajabs.

Both the clerk and the police are racist morons