Chris Colin has a damning article at SFGate.com documenting the workplace harassment faced by Kurdish-American mechanic Hamid Sayadi after September 11th. Sayadi, who was granted amnesty in the United States in 1977 after fleeing Iraq, alleges he was called a terrorist, had his tires slashed and had his lunch box inspected by his superior (for fear of a bomb being inside); he’d worked for his employer, New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., since 1990. The last straw? Being strip-searched by security when he attended a company-sponsored “Mission Accomplished” party after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
I doubt this is an isolated incident; I can’t imagine the barrage of hostility people of Middle Eastern descent have had to endure over the past six years. Of course, American ignorance isn’t a finely wielded tool–my best friend, who is of Indian descent, has been called “a Palestinian terrorist” and “Osama Bin Laden” by thoughtless pigs on the street. If this is the new America we’ve chosen, let me offer a thought for our updated national anthem: a series of oinks and squeals.