S.'s husband, a man I don't know and a story I have second hand, has been harassed by a client at work for being 'a Paki'. This started even before September 11th. He's now been threatened by the same white man saying he's going to murder him for being a Muslim.
Apparently it took a while - quite a while - to convince him to go to the police. He believed they would do nothing.
Ok. This entry started out almost as hearsay, but I'm including here it because of my own dodgy Liberal responses to it. My first reaction was, of course, sympathy and shock. But frankly, my next reaction was partly about this diary... and a kind of pleasure in the vicarious attack. I didn't focus on him or R and the actual pain and fear they must be going through. I focused on how this incident proves my own hypothesis, that the fallout of the bombings - of September 11th even - is everyday attacks on everyday Muslims. I was almost pleased that it proves my hypothesis that we are heading for a situation akin to 1930s Nazi Germany, where whole populations of diverse origin unite in their hatred of a 'common enemy' within. Where it is common place to attack, verbally and physically, people who are just going about their daily life as citizens just because they seem 'different'. The thing is, I also reduced a human to a stereotype when I did that. I was looking at him as the stereotype of a victim, instead of understanding the man and what he and his family are going through. I remind myself now that it's not just a good anecdote.