When Arabic is suspect.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: McCarthyism Watch - Raed Jarrar humiliated by JetBlue Airways Corp. for wearing a t-shirt with arabic language

This is a story about one T-shirt that caused two rows. The shirt has the phrase "We will not be silent," written on it both in English and in Arabic.

This may seem innocuous enough, but not in today's America, where the very sight of Arabic alarms some citizens, as well as Homeland Security.

On August 12, Raed Jarrar, who works for Global Exchange in Washington, D.C., was wearing that T-shirt as he was trying to board a JetBlue flight from JFK to California.

While he was at the gate eating some cheese and grapes and drinking some orange juice, two men approached him and one flashed his badge, Jarrar writes on his blog, raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com. They asked for his boarding pass and driver's license.

"People are feeling offended because of your T-shirt," said one of the men, whom Jarrar identifies as Inspector Harris.

"He asked me if I had any other T-shirts to put on, and I told him that I had checked in all of my bags," Jarrar relates on the blog. "And I asked him, 'Why do you want me to take off my T-shirt? Isn't it my constitutional right to express myself in this way?' ... Do you have an order against Arabic T-shirts? Is there such a law against Arabic script?"

Here's what Inspector Harris said, according to Jarrar: "You can't wear a T-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport* It is like wearing a T-shirt that reads 'I am a robber' and going to a bank."

Harris asked Jarrar to turn his shirt inside out, which he says he refused to do. Then an employee from JetBlue offered to buy Jarrar a T-shirt to put over the one he had on. Not wanting to miss his flight, Jarrar eventually agreed.

Jarrar says he told the inspector and the JetBlue employee: "I feel very sad that my personal freedom was taken away like this* I grew up under authoritarian governments in the Middle East, and one of the reasons I chose to move to the U.S. was that I don't want an officer to make me change my T-shirt."

When he boarded the plane, Jarrar says he was not allowed to sit in seat 3A, which was on his boarding pass and which he had chosen over the Internet. Instead, JetBlue moved him to the very back of the plane, he says.

"It sucks to be an Arab/Muslim living in the U.S. these days," Jarrar says on his blog. "You are a suspected terrorist and plane hijacker."

JetBlue, for its part, explains its side of this story.

"Mr. Jarrar was approached both by TSA and JetBlue personnel because they saw that customers in the area had noticed his T-shirt and were...