A New York Times reporter shoots pictures of guys posting signs illegally, a misdemeanor, and one of the guys assaults him. The reporter writes about it and then states he isn’t going to press charges because the guy told him he was going to assault him.

I began photographing the poster operation. After about two minutes, one man asked me why I was taking pictures. “Because what you’re doing is illegal,” I replied.

He answered, “Breaking cameras is illegal, too, but if you don’t stop taking pictures, I’ll break your camera.” He modified “camera” with an adjective I am not permitted to repeat here. I identified myself as a reporter from The Times. “I’ll break your camera,” he said, using that adjective again, “and you can print that in your paper.”

I distinctly remember thinking, “No, I can’t.” Then, rather than antagonize him further, I started taking pictures of the poster-covered scaffold pipes across Broadway.

The approach came so swiftly, I cannot even say whether it was from in front or behind. But I do remember a furious face inches away from mine as the man said he had warned me not to take any more pictures.

The next few minutes are — as they say — a blur. I was suddenly on my back on the sidewalk, near the curb, trying to hold on to my camera and fend off my assailant, with my right leg pressed against his chest.

…

My injuries were minor. A finger of my right hand was numb for a while, but I have since regained feeling. I have a four-inch-long bruise on my right knee. That seems to be it.

The police came quickly, though not in time to arrest anyone. I filed a complaint. The responding officer characterized the events as “criminal mischief” — intentionally damaging someone else’s property. It can be a misdemeanor or a felony.

I’m not inclined to press charges. While my assailant’s actions were frightening, they resulted in part from what he interpreted as provocation: that is, my taking pictures after he had explicitly warned me not to. He did not take my wallet, cash or briefcase; something he could easily have done while I was on the ground. Nor do I recall him using much more force than was needed to wrest the camera from me. He didn’t kick me gratuitously when I was down. He did what he threatened to do, but no more.

His rationalization?

In the greater scheme of things, my quarrel isn’t with him, anyway. It’s with the suits who made the decision in the first place to undertake an illegal marketing campaign.

…

As my agitation subsides, my gratitude grows; first, of course, for the fact that I was not seriously injured, then for the fact that so many strangers came forward to help me that night. The student, for instance, retrieved the shreds of my notebook and stayed until a friend of mine arrived on the scene to collect me. I asked why they had bothered.

“Because it was right to do so,” Mr. Zannino said. “Wish I could have done more.”

…

And the student seemed to understand what moved me to take these pictures in the first place. “While I’m a fan of certain forms of ’street art,’ (i.e., Banksy and his ilk),” he said, “I can’t stand the abuse of public space for advertising purposes, especially when it’s sanctioned by big corporations.”

It isn’t just the fact that this pinhead reporter was assaulted that’s wrong. It’s the whole idea that because the assailant was “provoked” it’s OK. Beyond that it’s the idea that because a corporation wants to make a profit they are responsible for an individuals illegal actions merely because they exist. And beyond that is the idea that this reporter has so little self worth he feels like he deserves what he got.

Writ large (hah, threw a fancy term in there for you educated types) this is America’s foreign face. In the 90’s Osama and company told us that they were going to attack us. When they did we were initially shocked and angry, but it didn’t take long before we started justifying the attacks, it was our fault for supporting Israel when we had been plainly told not to. Not long after that we started trying to convince ourselves that we were really at fault because after all we were exploiting the Islamic people of the world and we really did deserve to be attacked. As long as we play along America is a beacon of light to the world. The problem is apparently President Bush never really boned up on the play book and so when someone shoved he shoved back and shocked everyone so badly that they don’t know how to respond other than to tsk! tsk! us and try to look away. I imagine that the same sort of reaction would have been forthcoming if this reporter had stood up and whipped the living crap out of the guy who attacked him.

Update: I wasn’t specifically talking about Iraq above. We invaded Afghanistan 18 months before Iraq, and people seem to have forgotten but at the time it was not a particularly popular move. There were protests and calls for us to understand the terrorists. Now that it appears Barack Obama may be elected there are calls for us to rejoin the international community. How? By establishing relations with Syria and Iran, two countries sponsoring terrorism against our closest ally in the region. In Iran’s case they are also training terrorists attacking our troops in Iraq, after of course taking Americans hostage for over a year in 1979 and sponsoring the group that blew up the barracks in Beirut in the 80’s (after the US intervened to prevent Israel from overrunning the camps where the PLO had taken refuge) and that same group continued taking US hostages throughout the 80’s eventually executing a Marine Lt. Col there as part of a peacekeeping force. In response to all of this we nodded our heads, admitted how bad we were and pledged to try and do a better job understanding the just rage of the Palestinian people and slunk away. That changed with Bush. Iraq is another matter but if you want we can start dredging that up too.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 11:55 pm by Chad and is filed under Brilliant, but uncategorizable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.