 |
|
Interviewee Offended at use of subtitles
Added December 2007
Burlington County, PA - -
 Local shop owner Haziz Adad is tired. He is sick and tired, that is, of the sale of lighters to children under 12. Pennsylvania has very strict rules on the subject, not allowing the sale of a lighter to anyone under twelve years old. Adad runs a local Seven-Eleven and has recently come under fire after several eight year old boys were arrested with lighters they claimed were purchased at his store.
Action News 6 ABC did an expose story against Mr. Adad, sending in children who were four, six, and eleven years old to try and buy lighters. An employee at the cash register sold the lighter to the eleven year, but denied sale to the other two children. The reporter, Jim Walsh, quickly rushed in to the scene to get an embarrassing interview from the owner Mr. Adad, who was present at the time of the illegal sale.
The interview was normal for that of any expose, with Mr. Adad denying any wrongdoing, asking the reporters to leave, and then being followed around not answering questions. When asked if he had done anything wrong, Adad told the cameras to “leave me alone, I am simple. I got no money, I need the money, okay? Okay?” It seemed like just an ordinary news story, but, when it aired, the piece would shake the already tense relations between immigrants and normal Americans.
Mr. Adad spoke plain, clear English, one that was understandable to some. Yet, because of his thick, Tanzanian accent, subtitles were added to supplement his speech.
He quickly called the station in anger the following day, not because of the negative story, which he admitted was true, but instead to protest that subtitles were put below his words. “I spoke very clear, you can understand me, why this added? I don’t know,” he told us.
Local Muslim leaders were outraged and held this up as an example of the daily prejudice they receive. “You could understand him, come on,” said Mark Lamp, a hotel bell boy in Virginia, “those subtitles were unnecessary. It seems like every time someone with a strange accent talks they add subtitles.”
News spokesman for ABC later denied that it had anything to with his race, but rather his poor grammar. “When you or I speak, most people use understandable grammar,” said producer Jane Tyrannosaur, “but I mean look at what he said. ‘I am simple’. What does that mean? If you just heard it, you wouldn’t believe it, it’s that stupid.”
- Stogiebros.com
2007
|
|
|
