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Google Cloud Dev Advocate Jailed at SXSW

• jc4p 11y ago
  SXSW also refused to give a US Olympian her badge until she removed her hijab: https://twitter.com/IbtihajMuhammad/status/708722250980012034?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/IbtihajMuhammad/status/70872225098001203...
  • sehr 11y ago
    A single volunteer who was fired. This is more about the APD who have a long and much criticized history of abuse.
    • KirinDave 11y ago
      I think both are pretty significant. Your message suggests this second incident should be dismissed.
      • sehr 11y ago
        IMO it's better to describe it as an issue with Austin/Texas as a whole, instead of just tying everything to SXSW. Austin & Texas have a lot of problems.
      • jo909 11y ago
        A volunteer asking for something unreasonable, possibly because he has no understanding for the religious role of a hijab, that you can simply decline, maybe explain and surely get sorted by talking to someone else, or at worst just walk away in disgust, is very different than experiencing police abuse and force, being helpless and restrained, isolated from your friends and family for hours. Not to dismiss that event, still pretty fucked up, but not the same order of magnitude.
        • KirinDave 11y ago
          I agree they are very different. > but not the same order of magnitude. Systemic abuse magnifies the scale of individual incidents.
  • jerrycabbage 11y ago
    It was one volunteer. How stupid can you be? It was not "SXSW".
    • beedogs 11y ago
      Go away.
    • deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  • a_new_account12 11y ago
    Can anyone explain to me why she shouldn't have to take her hat off? How many accommodations are we willing to make "for religious reasons"?
    • fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
      Can you explain why she should?
      • a_new_account12 11y ago
        Fairness. Is that not sufficient reason? If taking your hat off was required for the picture, then she should also have to take her hat off. If taking your hat off was optional, then she should be able to keep her hat on.
• jpgvm 11y ago
  That is really fucked up. The threshold for chucking someone in a cell needs to be higher than hearsay.
  • ps4fanboy 11y ago
    #ListenAndBelieve
  • ihsw 11y ago
    I would look at this from a different point of view -- give people recourse against this kind of nonsense. Reduce the barrier for people to rightly protect themselves and help them wherever necessary.
  • seivan 11y ago
    The threshold for ruining people's lives in general needs to be higher than hearsay. But we're often quick to disregard that when it fits our own world view or hits closer to home.
• beedogs 11y ago
  AKA, "why I don't miss the US after leaving 8 years ago." They'll lock you up for breathing the wrong way there.
• jerrycabbage 11y ago
  Why is this crap making it to the top of ycombinator? I am perfectly happy seeing SXSW not screw with Austin for a week. This guy was probably detained for suspicion of a crime. Austin cops have their problems but are not particularly bad in any regard. Austin is a very safe city and one of the few to not have any "mass shootings" in recent history. Austin's big problem is the gentrification brought on by class conscious geeks constantly moving there.
  • KirinDave 11y ago
    > Why is this crap making it to the top of ycombinator? Because SXSW is one of the most important events of the year for launching digital products that are not games? Lots of regulars of this website (myself included) are part of product launches at SXSW. It's also a diversity-related story, which has been becoming an increasingly important topic for HN.
    • jerrycabbage 11y ago
      Yes, but there is no real story yet. People do legitimately become detained for things. It sucks, but thats what happens when you show up to demonstrations etc which the author aludes to previous in his twitter feed, but not the one quoted in this message. It is Travis County, the liberal mecca of Texas. People are not being oppressed for their views there. He did something to have the spitmask put on him.
      • KirinDave 11y ago
        Guilty until proven innocent, I see. > It is Travis County, the liberal mecca of Texas. There are lots of liberals who act in racist ways.
        • jerrycabbage 11y ago
          Dude looked white to me. Not sure what your point here would be.
  • 11y ago
• Mikeb85 11y ago
  Speaks foreign language, has a beard, and Texas. Sounds about right.
  • vmorgulis 11y ago
    Yes, I think it's because of the beard. I have myself similar problems but for different reasons.
    • krapp 11y ago
      I can't imagine a place which has less tolerance for beards than Austin, Texas.
      • vmorgulis 11y ago
        The opposite is true in Iran.
        • lovemenot 11y ago
          ZZ Top intersects.
• jacquesm 11y ago
  With a bag on his head? WTF?
  • molecule 11y ago
    > It seems what they used to cover my head was a spit mask... https://twitter.com/francesc/status/709161902631424004 https://twitter.com/francesc/status/709161902631424004
• ps4fanboy 11y ago
  I wonder who pointed him out and why
• supernova87a 11y ago
  It would be helpful if the story had any details, to know what to provide useful comment on...
• supernova87a 11y ago
  It would be helpful if the story had any details, to know what to provide useful comment on...
• nothrabannosir 11y ago
  Wow, I don't know what happened at SXSW, but this Twitter conversation is a disaster in itself. Mr Spandex ‏@Manfeelings90 12h12 hours ago @strobist He was treated EXACTLY how he wants his opponents treated. He helped create this Culture of fear over "harassment" 0 retweets 0 likes -- Be Just & Fear Not ‏@SuperNerdMike 21h21 hours ago .@francesc Did you try spitting on the cops by chance? 0 retweets 3 likes Reply Retweet Brussel Sprout ‏@TheIxxer 21h21 hours ago @SuperNerdMike can I take bets that he got drunk, belligerent. Police came, he called them bigots and spat at them. Now he cries oppression. 1 retweet 5 likes Be Just & Fear Not ‏@SuperNerdMike 21h21 hours ago @TheIxxer Let's make a pool. 0 retweets 4 likes Caffeine Commissar ‏@CaffComm 21h21 hours ago My money is not on trusting the guy who made his profile picture look like he has a halo. @SuperNerdMike @TheIxxer ... that's rough. Do these people know something I don't? Or is this really what Twitter gets like once you get exposure?
  • fweespee_ch 11y ago
    > ... that's rough. Do these people know something I don't? Or is this really what Twitter gets like once you get exposure? It is what Twitter is like when you get some exposure unfortunately. Trolls, racists, etc. come out of the woodwork.
    • tuxracer 11y ago
      Seems this is what Twitter is like when you get exposure in general. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9oZplyzDKc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9oZplyzDKc
    • ps4fanboy 11y ago
      You could apply this to almost any amount of popularity look at what people say about Donald Trump.
      • fweespee_ch 11y ago
        Yes. It isn't twitter specific but to be fair, Donald Trump engages in alot of behavior that encourages that. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/opinion-trump-latest-pied-piper-dog-whistle-politics-n397326 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/opinion-trump-latest-pied...
• dctoedt 11y ago
  How about withholding judgment until more facts are known, please.
• jfdujdnn 11y ago
  There is far more to this story. Wait for it to come out before you jump to conclusions.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
• jerrycabbage 11y ago
  I've never known anyone who acted reasonably have a spit mask put over their face. Only place I was arrested. I was off the charts drunk and treated 100% fairly. Long hair and all. Just because some John Oliver show etc, doesn't mean Texas is all the same. Nor can you take the behavior of one volunteer and extrapolate to the rest of Texas. I honestly expect higher discourse from this news aggregator site.
• justin_vanw 11y ago
  Anyone's story about 'why they just got arrested' is probably not one you can really take at face value. People who did nothing will usually say they did nothing. People who committed a crime or were very unruly or unsafely intoxicated will also usually say they did nothing. Let's not start sharpening the pitchforks quite yet. This could be a ridiculous and completely unjust situation! However, it could also be that this person got very drunk while partying and did something stupid, and either remembers it incorrectly (see 'drunk') or is terrified of losing their job and wants to set the narrative.
• cubano 11y ago
  I have been locked up over 20 times in my life. Everytime I've been to jail, there are newbies in the holding cells that cry "I didn't do anything" and can't believe how horrible and mean all the CO's are. And everytime, if and when I go to First Appearance with them, it turns out they very much did something quite illegal that got them arrested in the first place, and its almost always something then did not want to discuss while they were whining in the holding cell. If your are new to jail, every fucking hour seems like an entire day and the powerlessness of the situation seems beyond comprehension. BTW, it designed like that so, you know, you don't ever want to come back. That's the whole point.
  • jacquesm 11y ago
    > BTW, it designed like that so, you know, you don't ever want to come back. That's the whole point. Seems to contradict > I have been locked up over 20 times in my life. Now going on the assumption that you did not want to go back it looks as if that alone is not enough to stop it from happening.
    • cubano 11y ago
      Well you know, lifelong addiction is a real bitch, and every instance of jail was due to it in one form or another. It took me 25 years and utterly wrecked relationships with my brother, closest old friends, and my lovely ex-wife to start to begin to see the light. None of them really talk to me anymore, even though I've been pretty much clean for years now. I drove for 18 years on a suspended license that I was unable to get reinstated for 5 years at time because I spent the ticket money on dope. Many of my arrests were due to driving issues, but certainly not all. It's been a real mess, and I'm tired. Maybe someone going down that path will read this and think about what I'm saying.
      • jacquesm 11y ago
        Holy crap that's a tough one. My dad was a serious alcoholic, I've seen from the front row what addiction can do to you and your relationships with others and if anything that taught me in the harshest way imaginable to a young kid to stay away from stuff that I'm not equipped to deal with even in moderation. My dads funeral was a 'small' affair. As in, the only people present there were two friends from his student days, his wife and my sister, me and my eldest. Everybody else either didn't want to come or was told to stay away by his wife. For someone who got to be 69 (in spite of all the booze) you'd expect a few more people to show up but his relationships with the rest of the world were so bad that he died quite lonely. It looks - by your writing - as though you've come out the other end of this and are on your way to a better life, congratulations, it must have been extremely hard to get to where you are today, I don't think my dad would have been able to achieve what you have done no matter how much time he would have had.
• slg 11y ago
  Before we turn into an angry mob, can we try to wait until more facts come out about this? Remember what you have heard so far is only one guy's side of the story. In a different tweet the author said that it was for public intoxication. Austin is a big college town and throwing young guys into the drunk tank for public intoxication is a pretty common thing in these type of towns. And I am willing to bet that most people who are thrown into the drunk tank think they "did nothing wrong". A reasonable explanation is this guy got a little tipsy and the police thought he was drunker than he was, threw him into a drunk tank to sober up, put a spit mask over his head in case (or because) he was being belligerent or he might puke, then released him once he was clearly sober. Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is fair treatment. But for anyone who has spent years living in a college town populated by tens of thousands of drunk 20 somethings, it is at least understandable why the citizenry would want police to respond this way. It is also far from a sign that the US is racists as a whole or an (extra) reason we should be afraid of Trump which the author seemed to suggest in other tweets.
  • Titanous 11y ago
    The Texas public intoxication law is apparently very broad (you could be arrested without having had a single drink) and is apparently used to discriminate regularly: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/texas-racist-laws-drinking-while-brown http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/texas-racist-law...
    • fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
      Definitely, the lege needs to do something here.
  • sbov 11y ago
    Using a spit mask because you're afraid someone is going to vomit sounds like involuntary manslaughter levels of stupidity.
    • adiabatty 11y ago
      Not really. You can get a lot of nasty diseases if someone spits into your eyes. I don't blame the cops for protecting themselves against MRSA.
• seivan 11y ago
  I thought this is what we wanted it? The ability to point at someone claim they're a harasser/suspicious and get them bagged and tagged? Have I missed the memo were that's not the modus operandi of recent efforts for combating harassment?
• nice_byte 11y ago
  > Finally got out of the Austin police station for no > apparent reason other than "public intoxication" > I had 2 glass of bourbon > Thanks, Texas! I've been drunk in Austin myself, and it's pretty scary to think that I could have been detained. Probably won't visit again.
• justifier 11y ago
  i was hit by a cop in his car in austin walking home from dinner with my so he slammed on his brakes the moment he realised and the first thing out of his mouth was, 'sir! back up onto the curb!(to my so) sir! sir, have you been drinking?' my so and i replied, 'WHAT?! you hit me, there is still 10 seconds on the walk clock!' pointing at the crosswalk clock for our direction.. the cop ran his red light the next second three other cop cars sped onto the scene blocking the traffic in three directions all of their officers got out of their vehicles and rushed over to the officer who hit me and asked him, 'what's going on here?' then he walked them out of earshot and was gesturing wildly with his hands and pointed at us i walked over to their kafka'esque huddle and stated, 'why are you asking him? he's the one who struck me with his vehicle' they asked for 'my version' of the story then if i needed an ambulance to come and take me to the er, and i said i would be unable to afford an ambulance and hospital stay so they said, 'well, then everything is fine here' and all four officers got in their cars and drove off leaving my so and i in the middle of the intersection of 7th and melina confused and infuriated if i was alone i'm sure i would have been bagged as well for following the rules of road but finding myself under the bumper of a red light running cop the fact that this was during sxsw 2014 had previously been uninteresting to me ..edit, said 'last year' but i lived in austin in 2014, yup, time flies