Horror hits Americans of every ethnicity

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September 13, 2001

By SHAYA MOHAJER

The Orange County Register

As with most Orange County 22-year-olds, Tuesday's attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was the first act of war I've ever witnessed.

The images transmitted into my home Tuesday morning had the senseless, unfair feelings of a nightmare. But unlike most Orange County 22-year-olds, I'm an Iranian-American. And I'm a journalist.

That morning my assignment was to assess local reaction, to talk to the public, to gauge the feelings of everyday Americans about the horrific attack. I was sent to South Coast Plaza, visibly shaken and eyes swollen from tears, and approached different people to talk about the tragedy.

I found that the public felt all the things that are to be expected: Shock, fear and sadness overwhelmed people as they spoke, and they often stopped short.

Sometimes I stopped short, too.

We were gathering our composure, trying to continue the conversations, or maybe just to continue, period.

I approached one man and began talking to him, asking him questions like, "Do you have any loved ones that may have been in the area of these tragedies? Do you fear another attack of this nature?"

His answers were short: "no" and "yes," in that order.

Then I asked him this:

"What kind of person would be capable of doing something like this?"

His answer was simple. His answer terrified me.

"You should know," he said. "Your people did this."

He walked away at that point and I froze into the cool marble floors of South Coast Plaza.

I suppose it is possible Iran was involved. The true culprits, whoever they may be, have not yet claimed responsibility or been flushed out of hiding.

That accusation he left behind hung in the air. The idea that somehow I should know why thousands of people were killed in the most indecent act of violence I've ever witnessed -- I couldn't stomach it.

Fraught with anxiety, I wondered if that's how others saw me, if that's how my friends, my co-workers would see me now -- as a threat to freedom, as a terrorist.

As my eyes darted around the nearly vacant mall, I thought of a million personal characteristics that would prove I had nothing to do with this that I could use to defend myself ... .

I was born in Jefferson City, Mo.

I'm a vegetarian, a pacifist.

I've gone to school in Orange County all my life, including college at the University of California, Irvine.

The final thought that came to me was this:

I'm as upset and terrified as the rest of America.

I would never deny my ethnic identity. I was born into a culturally sound Iranian household, raised under the palm trees and sun of Southern California.

My ethnic identity has never been a source of shame for me. I've experienced racism before. I've been called racial epithets. I've been called a lot of things -- most of which come with being a journalist, I guess.

But this accusation, dripping with cool indifference to the effect it had on me, was more powerful.

This was the first time it got to me; this was the first time I thought about the consequences of racism in times like these.

I don't know what is going to happen to our society after the tragedy.

All I know is that one man, who doesn't speak for the masses (or for many, I hope), accused me of involvement in the most heinous crime against America based on the form of my face, the tint of my skin, the characteristics that define me as a foreigner in the eyes of many in this nation.

It's too much to expect people not to be angry, to expect the nation to wait calmly for a villain to appear and be punished.

But I hope it's not too much to expect that as Americans, we value one another more.

-- (cin@cin.cin), September 13, 2001

Answers

Today relatives were officially notified of one MIA in the Pentagon. Today other relatives mourned friends lost in the WTC.

Today I went in to work on my day off, because at least at work I can do something positive to help my country one person at a time. The job isn't likely to exist for long if the economy has taken a lethal hit. We got a memo of apology for the fact that we won't be paid for an unknown period of time. If we get hit again before we get paid, we won't likely ever be paid. I will keep working.

I write these things not to blow my own horn, but like the writer of this article, I feel I must somehow prove my loyalty lest I be relegated to a list kept by a self-appointed Guardian of Approved American Thought. I should make you see that I'm on your side before I tell you what I think.

I am a loyal American. I am friend to many loyal Americans with various ethnic origins and many non-Americans who came here for a better life. I am friend to people with a wide variety of skin colors and accents and religions. We broke bread together. We shared salt. We shared our religions. We shared our languages. We shared similar hopes for our children and similar gripes about our daily lives.

I've heard "good" Christians hoping for the extinction of whole nations and the expulsion of all foreigners -- and most of them are descended from immigrants themselves.

This isn't new. Third-generation Americans of German ancestry were harrassed with public approval during both of our world wars. The Japanese were unlawfully imprisoned in the second world war because they were easily identified as one of "them". We looked back at Mirimar and said it should never have happened. Today we call for the extermination of whole nations when we still are not certain who is to blame for this attack. "Raghead" was a common epithet in the early 80's. It was used then and now to denigrate all members of the Muslim community regardless of ethnicity or personal commitments to our country. This is so old I can't believe it still goes on. Doesn't anyone recognize it?

If my nation enters a war, I will fight -- the enemy. Not every person on the street who dresses differently, who has a dark skin, who speaks with an accent, who worships the same God with a different name.

-- helen (c@w.y), September 13, 2001.


wow =*|

thanks helen

-- (cin@cin.cin), September 13, 2001.


OK, simple problem with no simple answer: there are some Muslim terrorist cells in this country. They are deadly, to all Americans regardless of race or religion (even other Muslims). They exist at the grace of the goodwill and openness of the US society.

Yet they must be identified and isolated, immediately. This is no longer a theory. This is not racism altho racists will seize on it with glee.

So how do we (the government and the citizens) know who to trust and how to treat those who appear innocuous but may well be terrorists. (and don't the terrorists love putting us in this position).

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 13, 2001.


I had a weird experience with a Palestinian once. I wouldn't mention it except that I was leary of Palestinians for quite a while thereafter.

I can't remember his name, so I'll call him Pal. He was in my Chemistry class at University. I can't say I recall the sequence of events perfectly, but my lab partner was a black American and we teased each other relentlessly. One day Joe [my lab partner] said something to me and Pal came over from HIS lab table and punched Joe in the face, saying, "You will NOT talk to her that way." As I said, I can't remember the sequence of events at this point...I'm going back a good 20 years here. Pal one day asked me if I'd meet him in the cafeteria. I said, "Sure." We sat across from each other, eating lunch, and he gave me a Gold Cross pen and pencil set and said that he wanted to marry me. I told him that I was already married. He refused to believe me. He told me that he'd already told his sister that he was going to marry me and that I COULDN'T be married and be going to University.

One of my other friends from Chemistry was David. I guess David was an orthodox Jew, because he wore a yamaka?{sp?] on his head each day. Pal saw me talking to David and totally lost it. He said, "What are you doing talking to this...this...this...Jew?" He then got into a fist fight with David and our Chemistry prof came out of his office and said he wanted to talk to Pal. It seems that our prof's watch had been stolen and he highly suspected Pal. Within minutes, Pal and our prof came flying out of Prof's office in ANOTHER fist fight. I really thought that Pal was nuts at this point.

A few days later, Pal called me at home. My husband at the time answered the phone. I said, "Who is it?" He said, "The desert rat." Pal told me that our Chemistry prof had requested that both of us come to his office. I said, "Okay" and immediately dialed our prof to see what was up. The prof told me that Pal had called him and told him that he could deliver the person who had stolen his watch. I told the prof about the problems I'd had with Pal in Chemistry class the previous semester and it seems that Pal had ALSO been bothering our first-semester Chemistry prof [who was a female of Middle Eastern descent.] I didn't go to the prof's office, and Pal was kicked out of school shortly thereafter.

The weird thing about this was that several [maybe just a few] years after this experience, I hailed a cab in Chicago's downtown. I got in [who ever pays attention to a cab driver?] and Pal said, "Anita, I want to apologize to you for my behavior at University. My brother had been killed in a convenience store robbery and I was having a nervous breakdown." I wasn't going far, he pulled over to let me out, and I said, "No problem."

What I'd thought to be behavior perhaps typical to a Palestinian was actually just behavior of a person at his edge.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 13, 2001.


"I was born into a culturally sound Iranian household…"

If this is true then he must know why it happened. It breaks my heart that this idealistic, young journalist is getting a lesson in how the real world works.

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), September 13, 2001.



Anita,

Unfortunately Palestinian people ARE at or over their edge. Same can be said for Iranians, Surians, Afghanis, etc., etc.

His behavior in college was probably very normal for him and at your reunion he was just trying to set you up for another run of his own particular brand of insanity.

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), September 13, 2001.


For the first (and only, I suspect) time I agree with Thug.

-- Betsy Ross (Red White @nd .blue), September 13, 2001.

Excuse me, JBT, but the author of that piece is a female. Did you just assume, as you assume so many other things?

Tell me, JBT, how many middle-eastern people do you know PERSONALLY?

-- (cin@cin.cin), September 13, 2001.


Probably around 200, give or take 25 or so. The large majority of them I met were while I was in engineering school. Most of the students I knew at that time were Iranian, though there was a strong contigent of Syrians.

Even though I am a hick out in the sticks you would be surprised that there is quite a diverse collection of cultures settled in amongst the pigs and cows. Our state sponsored a large number of Laotian refugees, Hmong (after the fall of South Viet Nam) and Cambodians. Currently there is a trend for Bosnian refugees to immigrate to our state (mostly Moslem I believe). That is along with the flood of Mexicans coming to find jobs (largely in meat packing plants.

My own small town (less than 10,000 population)has people from most of the european countries, a large number of families from India, Pakistan and various countries in Africa. We also have a sizable Jewish population and boast a synagogue (something fairly unusual in this area). The sticks aren't quite what Hollywood paints them up to be.

Getting back to your implied statement that I have no personal experience with Middle Eastern people, that is simply not true. In fact, while in school I spent most of my day with these people in class and as part of study groups and teams (depending on the class). I found most of themm to be brilliant, clannish, arrogant, obnoxious and generally willing to cut the throat of their own mother to get what THEY deserved. Didn't care for them at all and it still irritates me that these groups come to America for their education, training, whatever, them turn around and bad mouth (and in this case attack) our country.

They think entirely differently than we do and if you happen to be in the same room with them don't turn your back. They have shitty attitudes towards women, generally think that they are God's gift to the world and view most Americans as stupid peasants.

This is my personal opinion but it is not one that I have developed in a vacum with no personal interaction with these people. Just for the record I did find the few Saudis I met to be nicer, generally, than those that came from other Middle eastern countries. However, they also had the air of arrogance about them so I never did get a feeling that they were that much different, perhaps they were just more polite.

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), September 13, 2001.


P.S.

In fairness I must add that they always seemed to be able to get the most kick-ass hash I have ever run across in my life. Hey, what can I say, calculus exams take a lot out of you.

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), September 13, 2001.



My experience with a few Israelis was like JBT's with Iranians while the Iranians (maybe I should say Persians as they were a lot more attached to their culture than their government) I know are particularly nice. Perhaps it is because the Israelis were just here for the university system; the Persians are here until their country becomes more like the US.

-- dandelion (golden@pleurisy.plant), September 14, 2001.

May I copy what you wrote? Pure art!!!!!

Thank you, Helen

-- afan (helenis@socool.com), September 14, 2001.


we are the=great satan, remember!! someday,i hope=americans will not be so naive'

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), September 14, 2001.

Sure, fan. Don't put my name on it, though. If I'm lucky I may be bagging groceries in few weeks, but not if the local grocer knows what I wrote.

-- helen (reaching@through.darkness), September 14, 2001.

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