An architect of Iraqi descent has said he was forced to remove a T-shirt that bore the words “We will not be silent” before boarding a flight at New York.
Raed Jarrar said security officials warned him his clothing was offensive after he checked in for a JetBlue flight to California on 12 August.
Mr Jarrar said he was shocked such an action could be taken in the US.
Mr Jarrar’s black cotton T-shirt bore the slogan in both Arabic and English.
Mr Jarrar said he was told a number of passengers had complained about his T-shirt – apparently concerned at what the Arabic phrase meant – and [TSA reps] asked him to remove it.
“We Will Not Be Silent” is a slogan adopted by opponents of the war in Iraq and other conflicts in the Middle East.
It derives from the White Rose dissident group which opposed Nazi rule in Germany.
Yet another incident that fits in concisely with the history of people fighting for free speech — and how it is suppressed by those who fear civil liberties, those who willingly collaborate with fearmongers.
So where are those that believe we aren’t spiraling down into a fascist state?
This shit is out of hand.
Welcome to knee jerk fascist America. Now shut up and sit down.
This site really needs to come with a convention for sarcasm/irony.
Until the feds make it illegal, of course.
I can’t wait for the conspiracy theory, america-hating liberals to try tying this one to Bush. Oh wait.
Why is decrying fascist behavior by security personnel “America hating”?
I’d love to see your defense of this behavior beyond the usual lame-ass right-wing bullshit.
Alright now. Let’s don’t all run to our lack of understanding of the Constitution at once. Do we have freedom of speech? Yes we do. Do we have freedom of speech past the point where it infringes upon others at all times? No we do not. If you think that is the case then please read your Constitution, read Supreme Court decisions and generally try to have a better understanding of what your rights as an American are. It’s complicated, the ideas are complicated and the interpretations of the Constitution continue as new cases are brought to the Supreme Court all the time.
In this case does he have the right to wear the shirt? Of course he does. He can march down the street with it on and if he gets attacked or harrassed he can notifiy the appropiate authorities. He can wear it to your house and if you don’t like it you can tell him to get the heck out. If he wears it to his work his boss can tell him to take the shirt off and the boss can fire him if he’s in one of the many states that has employment at will laws. Does he have the right to go on an airplane unimpeded? Clearly not. And I’ve got thousands of TSA agents to back that up. Is the airplane a public space in the same way the sidewalk is? No it’s not, getting on a plane is not a right at all.
Now, as for the freedom of speech issues there are very clear exceptions to freedom of speech above and beyond the fact that an airplane is not a public gathering place. There is the ‘fighting words’ exception to freedom of speech where the court has held that fighting words must “reasonably incite the average person to retaliate” and risk “an immediate breach of the peace” or they could not be prohibited. Since when is it your right to cause mortal fear to a plane load of people? Sure, the passengers and crew and TSA should be able to distinguish between a terrorist and a young man of arab ethnicity who is simply angry that he is looked at as a potential terrorist and who wears a tee shirt that says ‘we will not be silent’ and may or may not have the same words in arabic alongside those english words. We’ve seen instances where planes have been turned around because of passenger revolts simply because more than one arab looking fellow got on the plane. Sure sounds like an immediate breach of the peace possibility here with a angry arab guy with a shirt that says ‘we will not be silent’ – well the passengers will not be silent either and if you’re the guy letting people on that flight you’re going to say ‘you know what, the best and easiest thing to do here is to ask this guy to remove this shirt.’ If he’s angry about it well too bad, he should have known better than to wear something like that and try to get on an airplane. Sometimes common sense goes a long way and the arab man wearing that shirt wasn’t exercising any common sense at all.
Hm, One question: is there a dwindling of human/civil rights and of common sense ( insert fascist remark/reference here ) that the people of the USA are blindly accepting as to force other people into it?
another question: shouldn’t people be allowed to wear wahtever they want as long as they are dressed?
I am sure there are people like mr. Dvorak who see a major fracture in the government/governed relationship but are we ( people outisde USA ) supposed to think that nobody is welocme anymore, should the other countries force people from the USa travelling abroad to NOT speak english and NOT use dollars? I what would happen if all of the sudden Spain, France, or Brazil rejected stopped allowing US citizens to enter… I bet the Republicans would call it an act of war.
I wonder if he would have been accosted if the swastika were not on the tshirt? The intolerance is a shame, but understandable. Compare this to the hostility this man encountered while in Lebanon, simply because he lives in the states. The responses don’t compare.
I predict a growing enlightenment in America coming over the next several years, however. Hold fast to your principles and things will get better.
9,
What swastika?
RTFA, here’s the T-shirt:
gadlaw
While I agree with most of what you posted I have to say “we will not be silent’ , the English part, would be very hard to prove as “fighting words” defined as “reasonably incite the average person to retaliate” and cause “an immediate breach of the peace”
If you don’t understand Arabic the rest is meaningless. Not like a symbol, Swastika or cross, that is understood by a high majority of the world population. If you are incited to retaliate against something you don’t even understand then it is defined as unreasonable.
He did not have to change his shirt. He could have just left but, if he did what do you think might have happened then? Ask the 1000 TSA agents that question.
Also NEVER use TSA agents as proof. In general they are a very poor source for knowledge of anything.
I do think there is a little ground for a discrimination case but it would be almost impossible to prove.
The airline has every right to refuse him passage in accordance with their policy but, if they apply their policy in a discriminatory way they have violated his rights. They show this behavior in their statement about his shirt. Because they couldn’t understand it and it looked Arabic they would not allow it. They didn’t see to think that the English phrase was all that bad. It was the fact that it had Arabic that couldn’t be translated that they opposed it.
Can I wear a T-Shirt with a swastika in place of the letter ‘s’ in the words “George Bush”? Many would consider it offensive, including most TSA agents.
What if I were to wear the same ‘We will not be silent’ but with Spanish words above it?
What if I were to wear the same ‘We will not be silent’ but with a ‘Black Power’ symbol above it?
What if I were to wear the same ‘We will not be silent’ but with a GOP elephant above it? I consider the GOPoffensive… hence the T-Shirt should be outlawed.
I would be more afraid of the other passengers. I can well imagine a group of passengers beating the crap out of someone, possible killing them. It wouldn’t take much for these fears to spread into a riot. There are a lot of people in cemeteries that was in the right, but they’re still in the cemetery
Well J,
For the sake of argument you’re probably right about it not being fighting words in any other situation except perhaps on an airplane. As for the arabic meaning what the english translation said or not, that wouldn’t matter a whole lot in a world where somebody drops their ipod in a toilet and the plane gets emergency landed (news story I saw today) or where planes don’t even get off the runway when more than two or three arab looking fellows get on the plane or try to get on the plane. It’s the perception that matters here if you’re the guy trying to get home on an airplane these days. If you’re already looking for threats you don’t need to know what a tee shirt says in arabic to know you feel uncomfortable by the very fact that it is arabic. But it’s a moot legal point since the airline has the right to tell the guy to change his shirt and so it wouldn’t even get to a constitutional question.
As for all the swastika what if’s here, the Supreme Court did look at that symbol and said that the state could not deny someone (read nazi wantabees) from marching to a little suburn called Skokie which was a village with many holocast survivors and display all their swastikas in 1977. A hateful evil thing to allow but of course the people who lined up to protest the swastika waving Nazi types outnumbered and outshouted the brown shirts. Every single time the white supremists have ever crawled out from behind their rocks they’ve been outnumbered and outshouted. And of course if you wear your nazi shirt to the airplane you can expect that they’ll make you change your shirt if you expect to get on the plane. Oh, and you’ll be fired from your job and the only friends that’ll let you in their homes will be your fellow costume wearers.
Who cares that the shirt was offensive. Political correctness came out of people being offended. I don’t care you are offended and I don’t care if you offend me. I will just tolerate it until you are out of my site. That is why I also change channels on my TV. I feel sorry for the poor slobs that are so offended by what they see on TV that they can not even change the channel. Talk about living a paralyzed life.
Arabic language would not be so offending if the stupid Americans would learn more than one language. The narrowed mindedness of Americans strike again.
Since when is it your right to cause mortal fear to a plane load of people?
A lot of people are afraid of clowns. Should someone in a clown suit be banned from an aircraft?
Since when has “not being afraid” ever been a right of any kind for any group of people? I’ll wager there have been people who were afraid on just about every commercial flight since the DC-3 was first in service.
Some people would have us fear EVERYTHING in order to manipulate us. Can you envision a time when it would be impossible for ANYONE to fly because everybody is doing something that makes someone else afraid? I can.
And I’d have to disagree with your assertion that someone wearing a nazi t-shirt (or even a full nazi uniform) would be barred from flying on any airplane in the US.
I’d be interested in seeing the list of “rights” you think the average person should enjoy.
gadlaw
First Like I said I agree with most of what you said in your first post.
Would this mans shirt “reasonably incite the average person, on an airplane, to retaliate” and cause “an immediate breach of the peace”? That really is the question.
I would argue no, it would not. That response would not be “reasonable” because they have nothing to base it on other than a race and lack of knowledge.
Nor do I think the average person would “retaliate” They would probably just sit there and be uncomfortable.
“If you’re already looking for threats you don’t need to know what a tee shirt says in Arabic to know you feel uncomfortable by the very fact that it is Arabic. ”
Feeling uncomfortable and” being incited to retaliate” are very different. You may be very uncomfortable but that doesn’t make it “reasonable” for you to retaliate. You don’t have a right not to be uncomfortable on an airplane. If that were the case I think the airlines would be out of business 🙂
“But it’s a moot legal point since the airline has the right to tell the guy to change his shirt”
Not if their policy is applied in a racial discriminatory way.
My point with the Swastika was that it is universally identifiable not like the meaning of Arabic lettering. So one could say yes that is an symbol that could “reasonably incite” someone to cause “an immediate breach of the peace” because of the history of the symbol and how it was used by those who promote hate.
To apply the same understanding of Arabic letter is proof of ignorance on the TSA’s part.. It would be like saying the German language is equivalent to the Swastika
As far as the TSA agents that handled this.
My guess is that the reason they couldn’t give him a policy or a law that defended their asking him to take his shirt off is….They didn’t even know if there was one. He looked Arab. He had scribbling on his shirt that looked Arabic. Some passengers complained that they didn’t like his shirt and WAMMO! That was all the reason they thought they needed. Let’s violate his rights!!!
Like I said I think it is racial discrimination. It would be hard to prove but I think a good lawyer could win it. First off I would get the passenger list and see if anyone really did complain or if it was just a decision made by a poorly trained and overreacting TSA agent.
P.S. I lived in Skokie back in the late 70’s. They didn’t end up marching in Skokie they marched in Marquette Park Chicago. that was 78′ but it all started in 76′
I know they won the supreme court case but they backed down after the fact.
Wait for the next TSA ruling where they find that King George is really the lord god George and ANY criticism is blasphemy as well!
“Don’t be a Nazi man – Vote anything BUT Republican”
What a treat it is to watch hyper-whining radical lefties cry about fascism.
Idiots. You wouldn’t know fascism if your grandparents died because of ACTUAL fascism.
Give it some time and you will have ACTUAL fascism. You don’t have to be a radical lefty to notice the warning signs.
Interesting, but not new or news worthy. Here in the ultra-liberal bastion of Seattle, people have been denied entry to Safeco field for a Mariners’ game for wearing a shirt that simply said “Yankees Suck”. The shirt had appeared in other cities, and has never been a problem before.
But noooo. We might offend someone – it’s not PC. And no, Bush was not yet in office when it happened.
This Shirt incident is quite Christian Republican: “Freedom of speech, but only for speech we like.”
xrayspex ,
Dude, or dudette (as the case may be)
You asked “I’d be interested in seeing the list of “rights” you think the average person should enjoy.”
No problem. Here is my list http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html
The United States Constitution my friend. It says
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
And as for the rest of it, the Supreme Court, the lesser courts, the congress, the state governments, the people – all further decide what those rights are. It’s a continuing process. You can be involved as well.
And as for those clowns. I hate clowns. There should be a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw clowns. And you know what, I have as much of a right to work towards that goal as anybody else. Or not. You know, it would take a lot of clown haters to make that law. 🙂
Mr Jarrar said he was told a number of passengers had complained about his T-shirt – apparently concerned at what the Arabic phrase meant …
Ignorance and fear. A nice combination.
“We don’t know what that says, it could be ‘Death to America!’…” 🙁
7 Since when is it your right to cause mortal fear to a plane load of people?
Since when did a man of Iraqi descent wearing a t-shirt with Arabic printed on it cause “mortal fear” in anyone…
Were the 9/11 terrorists wearing Arabic slogans on their shirts? The Madrid bombers? The London bombers?
How does taking his shirt off make them any safer?
Did they double-check his bags after he “scared” the other passengers? Did they frisk him?
Shit…
“I’m sorry Sir, the sheep are bleeting so damn loud that the Pilot can’t hear the Control Tower! I’ll have to ask you to take that shirt off – and wear this ‘I support our troops!’ shirt for the duration of the flight.”
Note to terrorists: They scare easily, dress accordingly.
Do you think a t-shirt with God Bless America in Arabic only would “fly” ??
What could be frightening is that obviously Jet Blue and the security people they called voer obciously have absolutely zero confidence in the ability of TSA screeners to do their jobs. He was screened, and then went to secondary screening.
If even the airline feels he’s a threat at that point because he’s wearing a T-Shirt, that must mean TSA is completely incompetent and unable to screen passengers. It that’s the case, we can save millions of dollars a year if we just drop TSA and replace it with a dress code.
Because a dress code is obviously how you stop threats.
24 The United States Constitution my friend. It says…
In the 1st Amendment : “Congress shall make no law…”
And, Congress hasn’t.
But Homeland Security directives and TSA regulations aren’t “laws” made by Congress, are they?
24 …It’s a continuing process. You can be involved as well.
Yes, just ask Mr Jaffar about what fun it is “being involved” in the process. 🙂
That’s it.
I’m going to get a shirt made that says “God bless America” in Arabic script and wear it when I fly in the states!
(On the back it will quote Bush, “Freedom on the march.”)
That will be PR coupe for free speech when they force me to take it off! I hope you guys blog the article, here.
Would you enter a bar, filled with supporters of a team, wearing a T-shirt of the other team? Well, it depends. In England I probably wouldn’t. Or Italy. Some other places I would. And would you use it as entering a house with some friends to watch a game on the Tv even knowing they are other team supporters? Again it depends. I would use it even in England, but only if those friends were not offended by it. There’s a difference here, and the difference is crowd behaviour. As a group grows to the point that individual voices cannot be heard by all, the behaviour drops to the lowest common denominator. At this point the one that can vociferate above the grumble will lead the pack. There’s one thing fundamental here too, the group must be coherent.
This happens at larger scale too. You just have to find a way to reach to everybody to achieve cohesion. Historically the easiest way to do it is to appeal to seminal sentiments. Promote Fear and Ignorance and you’ll have a mob of people ready to do your every biding.
Raising the fear levels from time to time has this effect. People start to react to ridiculous triggers. The only antidote for this is Serenity and Knowledge.
This young man with the T-shirt has the undeniable right to wear it. of course. But he was playing the Fear game wearing it in an american plane.
Only good thing: we are discussing this serenely, putting away fear and reaching higher levels of knowledge.
No problem. Here is my list
I still didn’t see any “right to not be afraid”.
I don’t disagree that you probably shouldn’t do something that provocative. I just don’t see how it benefits anybody to allow such a clear violation of what is probably our most important constitutional guarantee.
Next stop: sedition.
Always worth a chuckle to watch opportunist neo-cons jostle each to drag their version of democracy into a discussion like this. It usually ends up sounding like — “well, the passengers should have a right to decide to gets to fly with them!”
Just like the average Mississippi redneck sitting in the front of the bus in 1950.