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We still will not be silent
Oct. 24th, 2006 01:22 pmRemember Raed Jarrar, the guy who was stopped by the TSA from boarding a Jet Blue flight for wearing an "inflammatory" t-shirt? A t-shirt that simply read, "We will not be silent" in Arabic and English.
A funny thing happened on the Staten Island Ferry two weeks ago. A white female student, Stephanie Schwartz, wearing the same t-shirt, was approached by the Coast Guard and was told she shouldn't wear it again on the ferry.
Quoting the interview on Democracy Now!: "And as I was getting off the boat, I was stopped by a security guard who said, you know, “Excuse me, Miss, but you better not wear that shirt on the ferry again.” And I was kind of taken aback. “Excuse me? You know, what are you talking about?” And he said, “Well, I don’t think it’s safe. This is a high-security area.” And, you know, I asked him, “Well, what’s unsafe about this shirt? What do you think it means?” And he didn’t actually comment on what the shirt meant. He just asked me, you know, “Isn't it in Arabic?” And I said, well, you know -- I just kind of looked at him incredulously. I couldn’t believe he was actually saying that.
And he said, “Well, you remember what happened on that JetBlue flight?” referencing over the summer, when Raed Jarrar was wearing the same shirt boarding a JetBlue flight at JFK. And I said, “Yeah, I remember that incident. I think it was racial profiling, because they didn’t allow him to wear the shirt on the plane, simply because it was in Arabic, and they said they didn’t have a translator to tell them what it meant.” And he said, you know, “Well, obviously you’re not a threat to us, but someone else wearing that shirt might be.” And, you know, I asked him if he meant by that that, you know, an Arab wearing a shirt with Arabic script on it would be considered a terrorist. And he didn’t answer the question. He just told me again that I better not wear this shirt on the ferry."
Lest anyone get the idea that Ms. Schwartz had worn it in solidarity with Read Jarrar, she explained, "I actually got the t-shirt before the JetBlue incident. I bought it at a protest this summer. We were in Washington, D.C., protesting Israel's crimes in Lebanon, and I saw the shirt, and I just thought, you know, what a great way for people to kind of speak out in a very simple way against the racial profiling that has been going on against Arabs and Muslims in this country and just to say, you know, we -- Arabs, Muslims and the people who support them -- won’t be silent."
We will not be silent. It seems rather a benign phrase to be causing all this hubub. Yet it has a ring of desperation, the sound of someone willing to at last rise up and claim what is theirs by right. It hits the same tone as "Let Freedom Ring!" and "We Shall Overcome." Yet it is the message of this age, and it is one we should heed.
We see the blood of our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters spilled in a failed campaign in Iraq. When the authors of that campaign want to throw more lives away, we will not be silent.
When we see the blood of Iraqis spilled by the hundreds every month and the government tells us those deaths do not exist we will not be silent.
When we see our constitutional rights traded for false security we will not be silent.
When we see our infant mortality rate dropping below that of Third World countries due to lack of access to prenatal health care we will not be silent.
When our parents and grandparents have to choose between food, shelter and medicine every month we will not be silent.
When we, as people of goodwill, see that injustice is being perpetrated in our names, we will not be silent.
A funny thing happened on the Staten Island Ferry two weeks ago. A white female student, Stephanie Schwartz, wearing the same t-shirt, was approached by the Coast Guard and was told she shouldn't wear it again on the ferry.
Quoting the interview on Democracy Now!: "And as I was getting off the boat, I was stopped by a security guard who said, you know, “Excuse me, Miss, but you better not wear that shirt on the ferry again.” And I was kind of taken aback. “Excuse me? You know, what are you talking about?” And he said, “Well, I don’t think it’s safe. This is a high-security area.” And, you know, I asked him, “Well, what’s unsafe about this shirt? What do you think it means?” And he didn’t actually comment on what the shirt meant. He just asked me, you know, “Isn't it in Arabic?” And I said, well, you know -- I just kind of looked at him incredulously. I couldn’t believe he was actually saying that.
And he said, “Well, you remember what happened on that JetBlue flight?” referencing over the summer, when Raed Jarrar was wearing the same shirt boarding a JetBlue flight at JFK. And I said, “Yeah, I remember that incident. I think it was racial profiling, because they didn’t allow him to wear the shirt on the plane, simply because it was in Arabic, and they said they didn’t have a translator to tell them what it meant.” And he said, you know, “Well, obviously you’re not a threat to us, but someone else wearing that shirt might be.” And, you know, I asked him if he meant by that that, you know, an Arab wearing a shirt with Arabic script on it would be considered a terrorist. And he didn’t answer the question. He just told me again that I better not wear this shirt on the ferry."
Lest anyone get the idea that Ms. Schwartz had worn it in solidarity with Read Jarrar, she explained, "I actually got the t-shirt before the JetBlue incident. I bought it at a protest this summer. We were in Washington, D.C., protesting Israel's crimes in Lebanon, and I saw the shirt, and I just thought, you know, what a great way for people to kind of speak out in a very simple way against the racial profiling that has been going on against Arabs and Muslims in this country and just to say, you know, we -- Arabs, Muslims and the people who support them -- won’t be silent."
We will not be silent. It seems rather a benign phrase to be causing all this hubub. Yet it has a ring of desperation, the sound of someone willing to at last rise up and claim what is theirs by right. It hits the same tone as "Let Freedom Ring!" and "We Shall Overcome." Yet it is the message of this age, and it is one we should heed.
We see the blood of our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters spilled in a failed campaign in Iraq. When the authors of that campaign want to throw more lives away, we will not be silent.
When we see the blood of Iraqis spilled by the hundreds every month and the government tells us those deaths do not exist we will not be silent.
When we see our constitutional rights traded for false security we will not be silent.
When we see our infant mortality rate dropping below that of Third World countries due to lack of access to prenatal health care we will not be silent.
When our parents and grandparents have to choose between food, shelter and medicine every month we will not be silent.
When we, as people of goodwill, see that injustice is being perpetrated in our names, we will not be silent.
