Happy now, hatemongers?

Here is a frightening peek of the scenery that lies down the road that hatemongers like Cao, Kit Jarrell, Nedd Kareiva, Melanie Morgan, Jay Stephenson of ‘StopTheACLU’, and others want this country to take.

On Friday March 30, 2007 at around 3:00pm, Mr. Kuldip Singh Nag, a Sikh American who was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in the U.S. Navy during the first Gulf War, was at his home in Joliet, IL when a local police officer noticed that a van parked on Mr. Nag’s private property had expired registration tags. Upon being confronted with this, Mr. Nag’s wife, Vera Kaur Nag, informed the officer that the van is parked on their driveway and was inoperable.

Mr. Nag then came outside to answer the officer’s questions regarding the van. The Joliet police officer then demanded that Mr. Nag park the van inside his garage and not on the driveway, to which Mr. Nag responded to the officer that it was not possible and that regardless, the van is parked on his private property and he has a right to park it on his driveway.

At this moment, the officer pulled out his pepper spray and attacked Mr. Nag. As Mr. Nag screamed in agony, the officer removed his baton and violently struck Mr. Nag numerous times until he fell to the ground. While the assault ensued, the officer was reported by both Mr. and Mrs. Nag as saying, “You f****** Arab! You f***** immigrant, go back to you f****** country before I kill you!”

Mr. Nag’s wife and six year-old child both witnessed the violent assault, which resulted in Mr. Nag immediately being admitted to the hospital where he stayed for five days due to complaints of intense pain and head trauma. Mr. Nag also received numerous bruises and a serious head injury which have caused him to go blind for several minutes at a time.

This is the kind of thing the bigots and racists I named above want to see more of in this country: naked, unrestrained race hatred. Sikhs are not Arabs, of course… but racists like this police officer do not stop to think about such fine distinctions. (Racists, in fact, do not stop to think at all.) The rhetoric being spread by the unhinged rightwingers who freely spread their venom on America’s airwaves and in print media encourages and condones acts of violence like this.

The recent flap over Don Imus’ on-air racist comments is a small but encouraging sign that the country has finally become sick of the constant diet of hatred. Let us hope that this revulsion spreads, and that the hatemongers reap the ostracism they so richly deserve.

(Hat tip: Boing Boing.)