As media punditry speculated and regaled in the rhetoric of assigning and implying Muslim blame for the Boston Marathon bombings by perpetuating insinuations about: the ‘Saudi suspect,’ the ‘dark skinned’ foreigner and the Muslim terrorist angle we had our first hate crimes.
A Bangladeshi-American man named Abdullah Faruque was attacked as he left an Applebee’s restaurant on Monday night. (the article in the International Business Times strangely assumes that if Faruque had not been Arab the attackers would have been dissuaded from attacking him.):
In an incident that echoes the 9/11 backlash in New York City, a Bangladeshi man was assaulted after the Boston Marathon bombings by four men in the Bronx on the mistaken assumption that he was an Arab.
The New York Post reported that 30-year-old Abdullah Faruque, who was born in Bangladesh but grew up in the Bronx, was having dinner at a Bronx restaurant Monday night when three or four Hispanic men apparently wanted revenge for the Boston Marathon bombings earlier in the day (presumably they had already ascertained that the Boston blasts were perpetrated by Arabs or Muslims).
The paper noted that the four men viciously beat Faruque while shouting “f–king Arab” at the Bengali man as he stepped out of the Applebee’s restaurant on Exterior Avenue in Melrose for a smoke.
“One of the guys asked if I was Arab,” Faruque told the Post. “I just shook my head, said like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I didn’t even know that Boston happened because I had a busy day.”
As Faruque, a network engineer, turned to return to his meal, one of the other men said: “Yeah, he’s a f–king Arab,” leading to a brutal pummeling that dislocated Faruque’s left shoulder and left him semiconscious.
“Before I could grab the door, they started swinging at me,” Faruque.
“I’ve been jumped before. If you can’t win, you back up, you try to protect yourself.”
Only after he returned home and learned of the Boston tragedy from the TV news did Faruque understand.
“I saw the news, and then it hits me: That’s why I got jumped,” he said.
The New York Police Department is probing the beating as a hate crime.
Palestinian Heba Abolaban was attacked in Malden, Massachusetts as she walked with a friend and their children:
A Palestinian woman said she was assaulted and aggressively harassed while walking with her infant daughter and friend near Malden Center late Wednesday morning, in an apparent hate crime motivated by Monday’s attack at the Boston Marathon.
Malden resident Heba Abolaban said she and her friend, both wearing hijabs, were walking with their children on Commercial Street when a man forcefully punched her left shoulder and began shouting at them.
“He was screaming ‘F___ you Muslims! You are terrorists! I hate you! You are involved in the Boston explosions! F___ you!’” Abolaban remembered. “Oh my lord, I was extremely shocked.”
She said the man – described as a white male in his thirties wearing dark sunglasses – kept shouting and walking toward her as she backed away.
“I did not say anything to him,” she said. “Not even that we aren’t terrorists…he was so aggressive.”
After about two minutes, Abolaban said the man continued his brisk walk toward Malden Center. Shaken, Abolaban called her husband in tears, and then 911.
“The police came and were so kind and helpful,” she said, though no suspects were arrested in the incident.