Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP - Archives

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: June 17, 2003
Latest Update: June 17, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

It's Not As Simple As It Seems

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, June 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.

This essay is based on an article in the Wall Street Journal on June 17, 2003: "Sounding the Alarm At Shoney's Takes a Toll on Mrs Stone" by Jonathan Eig, at P. A 1. Mrs. Eunice Stone is the one who made a 911 call to police after hearing some young men of Arab appearance discussing what sounded to her like plans for another terrorist attack. She was seated in a booth next to the young men in Shoney's, a local eatery in or near Calhoun, Georgia, where she overheard them discussing September 11 and heard phrases like:

". . . if Americans 'were mourning Sept. 11, what would they think about Sept. 13?' Sometimes they huddled close and whispered, sometimes they laughed out loud, she said.

" 'Do you have enough to bring it down?" one of them asked, according to Mrs. Stone. One of the others said that if he didn't have enough he'd get it."

Mrs. Stone, who was sharing breakfast with her son, was alarmed. Her son thought the men had noticed her attention and were just teasing her. But Mrs. Stone watched as the men left, recorded one of their license numbers, and called 911 to report the incident. When she told her husband, he said he didn't think he would have reported it, but that everyone reacts differently. A waitress at the restaurant is reported to have joked as the young men left that if "the men were planniing to blow up something, . . .they should have done it a day earlier, on Sept 11," and everyone laughed.

The police, however, took the alarm seriously, and stopped the car later "on I-75 between Naples and Fort Lauderdale. . . " There ensued a grand todo with bomb-sniffing dogs and great anxiety. The nation had just been put on orange alert becuase of the first anniversary of the World Trade Center bombing. But there were no explosives in either of the young men's cars. They were medical students en route to Miami to begin their hospital internships.

I remember hearing about the search on I-75 and the medical students. Like everyone else, I wondered if we weren't all over-reacting just because they were Arabic in appearance. One of them wore "a Muslim skull cap" and a long beard." But I never heard of Mrs. Stone. Reading her story in the Wall Street Journal today reminded me of how complex all this is. The young men claimed to have said or done nothing suspicious, and one insisted that Mrs. Stone was lying. Later another of them explained that the money to bring it down referred to a car that one of them had left in Kansas City. So her report of the conversation had been reasonably accurate.

Since the incident Mrs. Stone has received a great deal of unwanted attention, with most people congratulating her for her courage in reporting the incident, but with others threatening and angry. She has been ill and diagnosed with lupus, and the spotlight doesn't sit well with her emotional and physical distress. She is "not afraid", but "concerned," and all the attention makes everything worse.

As I read this long article, I wondered how I would have reacted. This wasn't a simple case of "profiling," but the Arabic appearance of the young medical students certainly contributed to the overall impression of those who witnessed this incident in the restaurant. The President had, after all, called upon all Americans to report anything suspicious and let the police decide. How would any of us feel if we had dismissed the incident as a case of the young men teasing her, when in fact there was danger? Most of us would dismiss our concerns as too outlandish to be real. But would any of us have believed September 11 before it happened?

I agree with Mrs. Stone's husband. It's a close judgment call. We're all going to respond differently. And before this article I wasn't aware that an overheard conversation had led to the police stop. It was apparently well publicized, which is part of Mrs. Stone's dilemma. But I had missed it. It's hard to keep abreast of all the news nowadays.

Sometimes there is mal intent when incidents like that with the medical students occur. But sometimes there are just different perspectives that, once explored, make understanding easier. I'm sorry that Mrs. Stone has suffered so over her decision to do as her President had bid her and report anything suspicious. I am also aware at how easily such reporting hurts us all, those who do the reporting, as well as those who are reported. This is a time when we need illocutionary discourse more than ever to help us understand what might motivate others to act differently than we would.

I was a little surprised at how much space the Wall Street Journal gave this, and grateful for the chance to go back and look at some of the "terrorism" news in a new light that helps see the complexities and the differences.

Discussion Questions

1. What needs to be considered to decide if the police stop of the medical students was justified?

2. Explain how "profiling" was involved.

3. What conflict is involved in reporting a suspicious incident?

   Consider that you can't do an investigation, so that you must follow your instincts in interpreting the incomplete data the incident gave you.

4. What would you suggest to make such reporting less stressful?

   I would suggest illocutionary discourse and the recognition that many interpretations are plausible.

5. Why has the publicity been so distressing to Mrs. Stone?

   One possibility is the ambiguity of not knowing whether she was wrong or right, and having to deal with that ambiguity in public. That's stressful, especially if you're sick. I think she was very lucky to have a husband who seems to accepted her decision and supported her.