Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Salahi scares American media and leaders

I wanted to post this last month but I shelved it, thinking it was unimportant, and then today I decided to write a post about it because it bugs me how this guy Salahi is being treated. While watching Hardball with Chris Matthews one night, I was surprised to see him devote half of his show to the Salahi couple and how they got into the White House. Roxanne Roberts admits she became alarmed after she heard the name:

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Her "head shot up" when she heard the name. She also said they looked "sketchy". How do they look sketchy? Or is it just the name that's sketchy?

Today Dylan Ratigan made an excellent comment:

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I wonder if Salahi would be treated this way if his name was Smith. The media's attention on the Salahi couple seemed sensationalist, the kind of journalism I expect from People, not MSNBC, "the place" for politics. Maybe Chris should have spent that time talking about Martha Coakley and asking if there's any chance she would lose the Senate race.

2 comments :

Anonymous said...

Roxanne Roberts is definately guilty of racial profiling. Like you said, if the name was "Smith", he would of definately been treated differently. What's funny is they probably wouldn't even notice someone had crashed the party; but, because an arab name was called, there is an immediate terror warning. No one would have even paid any attention, but when it's an arab name, "oh watch out, we may have a terrorist in the building"!

David All said...

I was wondering why there so much attention being paid to the Salahi couple gate crashing the White House. It was not as if they were carrying guns or a bomb. You are right, Mojo, that if their names had been Smith, there would not have been anywhere near this much attention. This is really a case of ethnic prejudice gone wild.

You will be glad to know, Mojo, that it is not just Arabs or Muslims that can cause hysteria; Jews can do so as well. Read "Jewish religious item leads to false bomb scare on U.S. plane" at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1144252.html and "Bomb Scare diverts plane to Philly" at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/21/national/main6123671.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody