It was billed as a chance for South Asian immigrants to learn from a cop and prosecutor what hate crimes are and how to report them. But by the end of the meeting in Brooklyn's heavily Pakistani Midwood section, the lecturers were mired in legalisms, the organizers were squirming with confusion, and many in the audience seemed like they wanted to be anywhere but here, the place they thought they'd find help.
City Limits Magazine
The hijabed housewives, the cabbies snacking on vegetable samosas, the civil rights activists--they had come here at the behest of the Council of Pakistan Organization, an immigrants' rights group on Coney Island Avenue, and started out full of good intentions. Everyone agreed that reports of attacks against Muslims and people who look Muslim have plummeted in New York since the first weeks after the World Trade Center attacks. Post-9/11 assaults, such as taxi drivers being dragged from their vehicles, are now outstripped by occasional epithets on the order of "terrorist," "towel head," "Osama."
For those who didn't already know, Farrell explained an important detail about hurtful words like these: "In this country we have the First Amendment," he said, as Council of Pakistan community organizer Meeka Bhattacharya, a recent graduate of Bard College, translated to Urdu. Accordingly, New York State's hate-crimes legislation deems bigoted language to be protected speech. "For example," continued Farrell, "it wouldn't be a crime for me to put a Nazi flag on my front lawn." Hateful words and symbols, Farrell explained, are only unlawful if they accompany a traditionally criminal act, like beating someone up or vandalizing a building with spray paint.
Some in the crowd looked perplexed. Others seemed disgruntled.
Impatience grew as Farrell warned that even when assaults and vandalism do occur, they're hate crimes only when authorities can show that the perpetrator deliberately chose his targets because of their links to, say, a particular race, nationality or religion. "The stupidest thing you can do is open your mouth," Farrell quipped. As an example, he described a Muslim who recently poured gasoline on a Brooklyn synagogue. In itself, that wouldn't be a hate crime. But after the man spent an hour at the police station fuming about how he despised Jews, it was easy to slap him with a hate-crime charge. On the other hand, Farrell waxed mystically, if a perpetrator stays silent, "we're never going to know" if he committed an ordinary crime or a hate crime, because "the truth is locked in the offender's heart."
The chairs were squeaking now as it dawned on the Pakistanis that all the hate-crime laws and training sessions in the world would not address another of their problems--one far more terrorizing than being called a terrorist.
A slender, somber young man with a half-healed gash on his head gave details in heavily accented English. "I was stabbed in February outside my home," said Jamil Chaudhry, a livery driver who immigrated five years ago and now lives in Ditmas Park. "He tried to rob me and he chased me. He tried to come through my back door. The next night he hid in the hedges at 3 a.m. When I came to my door he stabbed me five times in the head. Six months ago another perpetrator stabbed my brother. But the police report everything simply as robbery."
