At Ground Zero anti-Islam rally, man harassed for looking vaguely Muslim.

By Matt Duss

At an anti-Islam rally yesterday at Ground Zero, a person of color wearing a skull cap and wandering through the crowd was targeted with insults and nearly attacked by protesters for the offense of looking vaguely Muslim. The videographer summarized the episode this way:

A man walks through the crowd at the Ground Zero protest and is mistaken as a Muslim. The crowd turns on him and confronts him. The man in the blue hard hat calls him a coward and tries to fight him. The tall man who I think was one of the organizers tried to get between the two men. Later I caught up with the man who’s name is Kenny. He is a Union carpenter who works at Ground Zero. We discussed what a scary moment that was for him.

Glenn Greenwald observes that the video “shows some extremely ugly stuff that’s been unleashed.” Watch it:

Interesting way to “honor” Ground Zero, no?

Update While there was much hate at yesterday’s rally, there were also many people who turned out to support the construction of the Islamic center. See pictures here, here, here, here, and here.