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Meera Shankar Indian Ambassador To U.S. Unfamiliar With Mississippi Culture
After a humiliating TSA, Transportation Security Administration, pat down at Jackson, Mississippi airport, that left Indian Ambassador to the United States, Meera Shankar, livid and insistent that she would never return to America has prompted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to promise a review of TSA policies in the aftermath of a nationwide revolt against invasive airport security measures. At the height of the TSA backlash last month, Clinton herself told CBS News that the pat down procedures were so invasive that she would personally want to avoid them.
Now she has been forced to promise an inquiry into measures that led to Indian diplomat Meera Shankar being confined to a glass cage before being invasively groped by TSA staff in full public view, after Indian authorities demanded an apology for her treatment. “We obviously are concerned about it,” Clinton told reporters in Washington.
Although the matter had not been raised when she met with Shankar on Tuesday, Clinton said, “Certainly we will be looking into it and not only responding to the Indian foreign minister but also reviewing the policies,” reports CBS News.
Here’s what we think…we think thie result of reports of this controversial this incident will change how diplomats are treated…you and Iwill receive the same bad treatment by TSA agents whether in Mississippi or New Jersey.
According to reports in the Times Of India Online “American security minders on Thursday insisted that US airport personnel went ‘by the book”
in the ‘pat down’ incident involving Indian ambassador Meera Shankar even as administration mandarins reportedly offered a qualified regret and promised a review of the matter.”
The Times also reports: “It was the nearest any US official came to publicly expressing regret much less an apology on a day Washington pushed back against the emotion from New Delhi. Most of the placatory statements came from the state department, which has to worry about diplomatic niceties, in contrast to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has no such obligation.”
As illustrated by this response from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano who stated, “It was a pat-down that followed our procedures, and I think it was appropriate under the circumstances.”
Although she may be from the Northeastern U.S., (born in New York City, raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), Secretary Napolitano’s remark gives unwitting support to our feeling about the history and culture of Mississippi. Perhaps she’s showing solidarity with TSA employees who are accustomed to the culture of the South. Despite appearing to be a Yankee on the outside, Secretary Napolitano may have some Dixie in her heart.
Watch this video of the late Nina Simone’s very first protest song. It was written and recorded following the murder of four little girls by a well known home grown terrorist group who bombed a church one Sunday morning in 1963.
In this case the lyric, “Yes you lied to me all these years,You told me to wash and clean my ears, And talk real fine just like a lady, And you’d stop calling me Sister Sadie,” is particularly appropriate. It speaks to the regressive culture of disrespect for people of color in Mississippi…that’s what happened in this situation in the 21st Century. Despite Ambassador Shankar presenting her diplomatic papers she was still humiliated, molested,so much so she has vowed never to return to this country. Way to go U.S.A! Doing what we do best on the planet…tearing down fences, insulting friends and making enemies throughout the world.
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