Even in Old Joe Biden’s America, it’s still possible to strike it rich. Establish a business, work hard to make it a success, and reap the rewards? Come on, man! That sounds like something out of the bad old days, the Reagan era, the Me Decade, the Decade of Greed.
Get with the times! We’re in the Whining Twenties now. If you want to get rich these days, you have to be part of a favored victim class and claim discrimination. The mad stacks will roll in. This is America! Grab the dream, baby!
The New York Times reported Friday that New York City, despite being besieged by illegal migrants, and facing skyrocketing crime and a crumbling infrastructure, still has its priorities straight: members of protected victim classes come first. The City That Never Sleeps “has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by two women who said their rights were violated when they were forced to remove their hijabs before the police took their arrest photographs.”
$17.5 million? That’s all? Why not $175 million? Why not $175 billion? Has anti-Muslim bigotry now completely taken over Gotham? These two aggrieved victims have to split a paltry $17.5 million between themselves, and don’t even get an all-expenses-paid trip to Mecca? No free food for those nightly Ramadan feasts? No free valet service? Mayor Adams, you call this a settlement? It’s an Islamophobic disgrace, that’s what it is.
This sad episode began in 2017, when one of the two poor victims, Jamilla Clark, was arrested for violating an order of protection. Clark recounts: “When they forced me to take off my hijab, I felt as if I were naked; I’m not sure if words can capture how exposed and violated I felt.” She says that she “wept and begged to put her hijab back on.” The second victim, Arwa Aziz, who was likewise arrested for violating an order of protection, “said she had a similar experience eight months later when she was arrested in Brooklyn. She sobbed as she ‘stood with her back to the wall, in full view of approximately one dozen male N.Y.P.D. officers and more than 30 male inmates.’”
All’s well that ends well. Not only are Clark and Aziz now millionaires, but the prize money will also be distributed among others who have claimed victimhood in a similar way. And above all, “in response to the lawsuit, the Police Department in 2020 changed its policy to allow religious people to be photographed wearing head coverings, as long as the coverings were not obstructing their faces.”
The city has got its mind right. Now it loves Big Brother more fervently than it ever did before. New York City’s law department spokesman Nicholas Paolucci said Friday that the lawsuit had “resulted in a positive reform for the N.Y.P.D. The agreement carefully balances the department’s respect for firmly held religious beliefs with the important law enforcement need to take arrest photos. This resolution was in the best interest of all parties.”
Really? What about law-abiding American citizens? Forgotten in all the controversy here is the reason why Muslim women are asked to remove their hijab for booking photos in the first place. It’s because something could be concealed within headgear, including a weapon. It’s also simply to enable more precise identification. But all that goes out the window when Muslim groups play the "Islamophobia" card.
Clark now says, “I’m so proud today to have played a part in getting justice for thousands of New Yorkers.” That’s marvelous indeed. Clark has obtained justice not just for herself, but also for everyone who is aiding and abetting the breakdown of common-sense safety standards all over the country in the name of “equity” and the avoidance of “discrimination.” The next time someone conceals a weapon in headgear and attacks someone in a police station, Jamilla Clark and Arwa Aziz, and above all their clever lawyers, should get a personalized thank-you card from the victim (or victims).
Related: Jackpot! Muslim Woman in Tennessee Gets $100,000 for Having to Remove Her Hijab for a Mugshot
Those lawyers today are reveling in lucrative righteousness. Andrew F. Wilson of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, the firm the women engaged to win their jackpot, intoned righteously that “forcing someone to remove their religious clothing is like a strip search.” Albert Fox Cahn of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project added that the big payout was “a milestone for New Yorkers’ privacy and religious rights. The N.Y.P.D. should never have stripped these religious New Yorkers of their head coverings and dignity.”
Sure. In saner times, however, an apology would have sufficed. Now city taxpayers have to finance this bonanza, and the city has to implement measures that make all New Yorkers less safe. But dignity has been protected! A victim class has been rewarded! That’s all that matters.
