Reuters

What is it like to be a Muslim, or a person frequently mistaken for a Muslim, in the aftermath of an apparent terrorist attack? Americans who don't fit that description can't really know for sure, but three news items from the last few days show that knee-jerk prejudice is inexcusably common. If your ethnic group were treated this way, you'd be walking around paranoid and anxious.

Innocent victim number one is a 20-year-old Saudi who is studying in the Boston area. He was watching the marathon when the force of the bomb blast tore into him. Amy Davidson tells his story:



He wasn't alone; a hundred and seventy-six people were injured and three were killed. But he was the only one who, while in the hospital being treated for his wounds, had his apartment searched in "a startling show of force," as his fellow-tenants described it to the Boston Herald, with a "phalanx" of officers and agents and two K9 units. He was the one whose belongings were carried out in paper bags as his neighbors watched; whose roommate, also a student, was questioned for five hours ("I was scared") before coming out to say that he didn't think his friend was someone who'd plant a bomb -- that he was a nice guy who liked sports. "Let me go to school, dude," the roommate said later in the day, covering his face with his hands and almost crying, as a Fox News producer followed him and asked him, again and again, if he was sure he hadn't been living with a killer.



Why the search, the interrogation, the dogs, the bomb squad, and the injured man's name tweeted out, attached to the word "suspect"? After the bombs went off, people were running in every direction -- so was the young man. Many, like him, were hurt badly; many of them were saved by the unflinching kindness of strangers, who carried them or stopped the bleeding with their own hands and improvised tourniquets. "Exhausted runners who kept running to the nearest hospital to give blood," President Obama said. "They helped one another, consoled one another," Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, said. In the midst of that, according to a CBS News report, a bystander saw the young man running, badly hurt, rushed to him, and then "tackled" him, bringing him down. People thought he looked suspicious.

Innocent victim number two, a 17-year-old high-school student whose name I'll withhold, had his image plastered across the front page of The New York Post, a newspaper also involved in spreading the story of the Saudi youth. Here is the effect of the tabloid's irresponsible journalism:



The family of a Revere high-school student whose photograph appeared in the New York Post indicating a link to the attacks at the Boston Marathon said they were being hounded and were afraid to leave their home. The front page of Thursday's New York Post featured a photo of [name withheld], 17, and another young man watching the marathon before the blasts with the headline: "Bag men: Feds seek these two pictured at Boston Marathon." The FBI later released photos of two suspects in Monday's bombings, neither of whom were [name withheld]. [Name withheld], a runner for his high school track team, told the Associated Press Thursday that he is afraid to go outside, fearing people will blame him for Monday's bombings. The AP ­reported that [name withheld] is a ­Moroccan native and went to authorities, anxious to clear his name.The teenager later told ABC News that when he saw the Post's front page, "It's the worst feeling that I can possibly feel. . . . I'm only 17." Outside the family's apartment building on Thursday, a man who indicated he was ­[name withheld's] father, but declined to give his name, told a Globe reporter and other members of the press in broken English that reporters had been hounding his family all day Thursday and they had been afraid to leave.



That brings us to innocent victim number three: all dark-skinned Bostonians. Earlier this week, CNN falsely reported that an arrest had been made in the Boston marathon bomber case, adding that the suspect was "dark-skinned." As it turned out, there hadn't been any arrest. Later that evening, MSNBC host Chris Hayes laid into the cable network for its coverage:



