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Arab-American Comedians (last updated October 15, 2004)
One of the new scenes on the Fahrenheit 9/11 DVD shows some Arab-American comedians commenting on racism towards Arab-Americans in the post-9/11 world. Among other things, they comment about the number of hate crimes after 9/11 and the problems they face with air travel.
Hate Crimes (back to top)
As cited in the piece, the number of reported hate crimes against Muslims did go up dramatically in 2001 compared to 2000.
The number of hate crime incidents based on anti-Islamic bias and reported to the FBI went from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001, an increase of more than 16 times. Additional hate crimes might have been classified in another category, hate crimes based on anti-ethnicity or national origin bias but not based on anti-Hispanic bias, which also saw an increase from 354 in 2000 to 1,501 in 2001.
Both categories saw a decline in 2002 compared to 2001 but were still above the 2000 levels.
The following graph shows the change in these two categories from 1996 through 2002 and the notable spike in 2001.
Still, as noted in the scene, there were many more hate crimes directed against African-Americans, homosexuals, and Jews than against Muslims in 2001. The following graph compares the number of reported hate crime incidents against different groups in 2000, 2001, and 2002.
The United States Commission on Civil Rights investigated issues relating to Muslims and Arab-Americans after September 11 and has collected briefings and presentations on the subject on-line here.
Air Travel (back to top)
As for air travel, federal law does prohibit discriminatory action or treatment at airports and by airlines, but there notably appeared to have been enough problems immediately after 9/11 that a Department of Transportation attorney emailed airlines 10 days after the attacks reminding them not to engage in discrimination; this came in response to reports that airlines were apparently removing passengers who appeared to be Middle Eastern or Muslim.
People who want to file complaints can find information on how to do so here.
Many people also have had problems because they have found themselves mistakenly on "no fly" watch lists or confused for people who should be on such lists. Muslims, peace activists, and even Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) reportedly have found themselves mistakenly on such lists.
Civil rights groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union have long criticized the lack of information about "no fly" lists. On October 8, 2004 the Department of Justice released documents to the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina that indicated that even government officials have expressed confusion about such lists and that the number of individuals on the lists grew dramatically after September 11, 2001.
Sources: The FBI's annual hate-crime surveys are available on-line here. The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has collected some resources relating to airline profiling of Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent on-line here, though some resources do not appear to be available on-line at this time. The American Civil Liberties Union has information about its challenge to the no fly watch list on-line here.
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