The brutal treatment of an elderly Indian in Madison, Alabama, not very far from where I live, is getting a lot of media attention. This is reported as a hate crime. Ironically such an incident in America, a country built from scratch by immigrants is not the first and certainly not the last. Here is my take on this, after scouring through the available media reports.
In general, the general knowledge of the common American is weak. For most, the rest of the world does not exist, and if so rarely extends beyond their neighboring state (many think United Nation in another country). When the baseball team Atlanta Braves plays with Baltimore Orioles they call it "World Series", for a game hardly played outside their country. And for a good number of people an Indian stands for "Native Indians" rather than an individual from a country bearing the same name from other side of the globe. It would have been the same for China, sans the ubiquitous "Made in China" products.
Now back to the original incident. The unfortunate victim here had just landed from India and hardly spoke any English. He reportedly stopped to take a peek into someone's driveway. Nothing wrong with being curious, and that is perfectly fine in our culture. Americans put strange things inside their garage which can draw attention, especially some one who is fresh from India. But in this country where individualism, privacy rules the roost, such a mannerisms is frowned upon. His curiosity apparently raised the curiosity of someone in the neighborhood, unnerving that person.
In the bigger cities like in Atlanta which is more cosmopolitan, the locals are familiar and comfortable with outsiders. But in smaller cities, especially in the deep south like Rural Alabama in this case, people often get freaked out by the sight of any unfamiliar person taking a walk inside their neighborhood. Many in rural America have seen Whites and Blacks, rarely brown skins. So someone found such a man loitering around suspicious and called the police.
Now it turns into a classic case of cultural hiatus. On top of that the language barrier of English did not help either. Unable to produce an id added to the woes of this poor guy (an adult in America is expected to have his or her id handy, in most cases it's the Driver's license). As reported in the media, he put his hands inside pocket while being interrogated by the cop. I am sure it was an inadvertent reflex action by the gentleman, who now felt skittish being queried by the police. But in a country known for its famous gun culture, putting hands in pocket or dashboard of a car while talking to a cop usually puts the later on defensive. The cop would have thought that he was reaching for gun, never aware of the fact that our Patel Bhai may not have seen a gun in his life, forget about carrying a gun.
From this point onwards, as per the famous Murphy's law, once things start going bad, it gets worse. What happened after that was perhaps a bad concoction of ignorance, poor communication, racial profiling, whatever. I am not going to judge anything beyond that. Let the the jury and the law of the land (including FBI who is reportedly doing its own probe) decide.
Having said that, a few points need to be noted. The policeman turned himself in and apologized to the Patel family, hasn't pushed GALU (as GALU PELA in Odia, which means stubbornly defending oneself without having an iota of remorse). He has been fired from his job and taken into custody.
