Recently, a YouTube video caused outrage after two filmmakers showed how they were subject to raw and insulting profiling by a New York police officer as Arabs. They posted the video and called for people to rise up against such profiling. The problem is that it turns out to be a hoax. Adam Saleh and Sheikh Akbar appear to have staged the entire scene. They have now achieved the very opposite of their intentions. They have undermined efforts to show that profiling is a serious and prevalent problem. Instead, many in the future may question the legitimacy of future stories or videos — much like the equally juvenile antics of the National Report that we have discussed previously.
The video below shows how a police officer was not concerned in watching the two men fight in ordinary street clothes. However, the men say that when they reenacted the same scene “just 20 minutes later” dressed in Muslim clothes, they were immediately stopped by an officer who asked them why they were dressed like Arabs and frisked them.
It was juvenile and stupid stunt that hurt those who have been fighting to get people to seriously address profiling. The men said that
“We were filming another video for our channel with our cultural clothing but we kept getting followed by Police. So, we decided to film this social experiment on racial profiling. Too many innocent people get stopped and frisked every day because of what they wear or their skin color. We’re against people stereotyping others because of what they wear or what skin color they are. Hope you all can spread the message and help bring an end to this.”
It was not a “social experiment” but a staged event.
Their manager, Bill Kanj, insists that he did not know it was a hoax until recently. In the meantime, the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has demanded an apology from the two men. CAIR previously distributed the video as an example of outrageous profiling by the NYPD.
The men may not care about the damage done to the cause. Their video operation named “TrueStoryASA” has racked up 60 million YouTube views and has more than 661,000 subscribers on the video-sharing site. Yet for real civil libertarians and videographers, this type of hoax is highly damaging and makes it more difficult to get people to trust such films in the future. “TrueStoryUSA” has now shown that you cannot always trust that such films are the true story. They further succeeded in embarrassing not just CAIR but a host of sites committed to fighting profiling. Quite a dubious achievement.
Source: Smoking Gun
Paul C. Schulte
If their was actually profiling they would not need a video. Hmmm seems simple to me.
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Good point that simple and simpleton are not one and the same.
“Racial Profiling: Legal and Constitutional Issues
Congressional Research Service Summary
Racial profiling is the practice of targeting individuals for police or security detention based on their race or ethnicity in the belief that certain minority groups are more likely to engage in unlawful behavior. Examples of racial profiling by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies are illustrated in legal settlements and data collected by governmental agencies and private groups, suggesting that minorities are disproportionately the subject of routine traffic stops and other security-related practices. The issue has periodically attracted congressional interest, particularly with regard to existing and proposed legislative safeguards, which include the proposed End Racial Profiling Act of 2011 (H.R. 3618/S. 1670) in the 112th Congress. Several courts have considered the constitutional ramifications of the practice as an “unreasonable search and seizure” under the Fourth Amendment and, more recently, as a denial of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee. A variety of federal and state statutes provide potential relief to individuals who claim that their rights are violated by race-based law enforcement practices and policies. ” (Legislative Lawyer, PDF).
“That the video is a hoax does not mean that the profiling by police is a hoax.”
Let’s consider that viewpoint. That logic.
If a hoax video of …oh….let’s say voter fraud were to be produced would you say the same thing. That the hoax video does not mean that actual voter fraud is a hoax?
Would you apply that same logic towards any other incident…..aka.keeping an open mind…..or do you just apply that logic to positions you already agree with?
And I’ll bet there are a lot of people who don’t get the memo that this was staged.
Karen – this will pop up on this blog from time to time over the next couple of years and have to be smacked down.
Dredd – ah, grasshopper, there is so much you have yet to learn. You still are not ready to swim in the deep water.
Dredd – are you qualified to practice medicine on the Internet? Or off the Internet? Just asking since you seem to be giving medical advice.
“The New York Police Department is disbanding the unit that mapped New York’s Muslim communities, their places of worship, and businesses they frequent – based on nothing but their religious beliefs and associations. To this we say: Good Riddance.
But the end of the Zone Assessment Unit – better known by its former, more apt name, the Demographics Unit – doesn’t necessarily mean an end to the NYPD’s unconstitutional surveillance of New York’s Muslims.
The NYPD’s discriminatory spying program has many components, of which the Demographics Unit was just one. ” (NYPD Shutters …).
This brings up another issue. These men wanted to voice their concern of racial profiling and that it be heard by many to raise awareness of what concerns them. Had they produced this video as a standard documentary with words announcing that the incident is a re-enactment or an example it likely might have not attracted the attention they wanted.
But, if they chose a format that claimed it was filmed by an actual incident the likelihood it would go viral and high and could generate the publicity they were seeking to achieve in furthering their message.
In long term effect such actions by them do call into question other legitimate news reports, and that degrades the provenance of nearly all videos of this type.
But unfortunately we are in a society where sensationalism attracts more of the interest of the general public than does informative and intelligent presentations. Sadly some of the former might be necessary to achieve the viewership.
“That the video is a hoax does not mean that the profiling by police is a hoax.”
Their propaganda was a lie, so now any other evidence is tainted.
Now one must presuppose that other videos are also part of the hoax.
And one can reasonably wonder, if profiling by police is not a hoax, and as common as they claim, why did they have to fabricate evidence?.
That the video is a hoax does not mean that the profiling by police is a hoax.
False equivalence.
It is a typical propaganda technique (What If There Was No Heaven).
If their was actually profiling they would not need a video. Hmmm seems simple to me.
The mother of the Canadian Jihadi has stated she is crying for the victims and their families, not her son. Tough love. I pray for her, a woman of principle.
Explain to me what his case has to do with this fake video.
Pogo, what do you think about the case of Dr. Sami Al-Arian?
CAIR and Islam have no compunction about making false claims.
It’s taqiyya .
They do it because people in the West are inclined to believe it’s true.
Pogo – and don’t forget CAIR has advisors inside the WH.
The Palestinians have doing these hoax videos for decades, showing their own violence against each other as Israeli attacks.
Gullible Western journos lap it all up.
This is exactly analogous to why it is harmful to those opposing true censorship to have an organization making false claims that keeping school children from sexually explicit books is censorship. That’s what the American Library Association does and that’s why ALA created “Banned Books Week” in 1982 when the last USA book banning was in 1963. See, for example, http://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2014/09/bbw.html
SafeLibraries – and isn’t it odd that libraries themselves ban books all the time. Yet they get their feathers ruffled when a book they like is banned. Guess it is a question of whose ox is being gored.
Tawana Brawley was the editor.
Al Sharpton was the silent producer of this video.
These men are interested in stirring up violence. Exposing the hoax won’t stop the incitement of more violence.
I never understood what was wrong with profiling. We all do it every day. It is human nature and in most cases, makes logical sense.
CAIR has its own history of hoaxing so I would not get excited about their claims of innocence. They had their fingers in the pie with the men on the plane at Phoenix who caused problems.