There are many examples of racist backlash by individual citizens and groups
of hooligans but the media and authorities also foster the same. This is
from the WS website:
On Thursday evening the television networks broadcast lurid reports that the
FBI had arrested more than a dozen individuals at New York's John F. Kennedy
and LaGuardia airports. It was said the arrests had preempted new suicide
hijackings like those that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the
Pentagon on Tuesday.
TV anchors reported breathlessly that the detainees, all of Middle Eastern
descent, were carrying knives, false IDs and certificates from the Florida
flight training school attended by some of the suspects in Tuesday's
hijackings. Film footage showed some of the detainees being led away by the
police. The arrests were hailed as a victory in the newly declared war on
terrorism and a vindication of the new security measures being implemented
throughout the US.
By Friday morning, however, the networks were obliged to retract their
accounts of the previous evening after an FBI spokesman announced that the
news reports were false and none of those detained were carrying weapons or
false IDs. No evidence was found in any way linking them to past or future
terrorist acts, and all had been released except one, who was being held on
an unrelated matter.
A federal official, acknowledging "there was no second wave of terrorism,"
said the arrests appeared to be the product of overreaction by authorities.
According to witnesses to the arrests, the police stormed an American
Airlines flight at Kennedy Airport and singled out foreign-looking
passengers for questioning. "Anyone with dark skin or who spoke with an
accent was taken aside and searched," said passenger Mike Glass, 43, of
Seattle. "And then they went to any male with too much facial hair," he
added.
Earlier in the week the media widely publicized the arrest of a suspected
accomplice of the hijackers who was traveling on an Amtrak train from Boston
to Providence, Rhode Island. The man, who was apparently picked out because
he was wearing a green turban, turned out to be an Indian Sikh and was later
released.
