I think it's more than a little hyperbolic to describe their actions as 'rabid racism'
They had a legitimate reason for suspicion. That reason wasn't the color of his skin, it was the color of a computer screen (a screen that flashes green hundreds of times a day flashed red in this case).
It's quite obvious that much ignorance and xenophobia followed, but I don't think it crossed (laughably subjective) line of 'rabid.'
A friend of mine who is about as 'all American' looking as you can get (white, tall, former marine...) tripped the same alarms after he had been firing a gun at a range the day before. He had an obvious and clear explanation for the alarm, so his experience wasn't as invasive, but they certainly gave him a hard time about it.
>It's quite obvious that much ignorance and xenophobia followed, but I don't think it crossed (laughably subjective) line of 'rabid.'
I suppose we could get into definitions of racism here. We're likely talking about "institutional racism", for which "prejudice plus power" is a pretty good definition, but I think perhaps "prejudice multiplied by power" might be even more apt. The prejudice was clearly considerable, but the power, and how it interacted with that prejudice, is what raises it to the level that I think could be called "rabid".
I think it's more than a little hyperbolic to describe their actions as 'rabid racism'
They had a legitimate reason for suspicion. That reason wasn't the color of his skin, it was the color of a computer screen (a screen that flashes green hundreds of times a day flashed red in this case).
It's quite obvious that much ignorance and xenophobia followed, but I don't think it crossed (laughably subjective) line of 'rabid.'
A friend of mine who is about as 'all American' looking as you can get (white, tall, former marine...) tripped the same alarms after he had been firing a gun at a range the day before. He had an obvious and clear explanation for the alarm, so his experience wasn't as invasive, but they certainly gave him a hard time about it.