Thread: Tour-bus driver fired for Muslim jokes

The absolute last 4 sentences will boil your blood, it did mine at least. Trust me…, it starts out sounding a bit irrelevant, but reading the whole article in its full context from the beginning will really emphasis the impact of the final 4 sentences. I couldn’t believe it when I read it and had to do a double take.

I support LEGAL immigration, but I think the last two sentences truly epitomizes a growing attitude among many immigrants living HERE, that they somehow have a right to demand AMERICANS conform to the customs and beliefs of THEIR home country, as opposed to them assimilating and adopting ours. The sentiment in the last 4 sentences is truly an attack on our Nationalism and Patriotism.

Jim

-------------------
OrlandoSentinel
Posted March 16, 2007

The Web site for I-Ride Trolley boasts comments from its riders:
"An efficient way to move around."

"Wonderful not to have to rent a car."

Here's one that is not listed: "The bus driver called me a raghead."

Operators of the tourist bus on International Drive fired a driver Thursday after a Turkish-American couple who had visited Orlando complained about comments he made over the loudspeaker to his passengers.

Hilal Isler of upstate New York said she and her husband, Volkan Isler, were offended when the driver launched into a monologue after they boarded the bright blue I-Ride Trolley bus about 8 p.m. March 5.

He greeted passengers, told a blond joke and then said he was an "equal-opportunity offender," Hilal Isler said. What shocked the Islers, both college professors, was his talk about Muslims:

"And now they're telling us we're supposed to be nice to these Muslim terrorists who are trying to kill us all," Hilal Isler recalled him saying. "Here in America, we call them 'rag- heads' or 'towelheads,' but that's not right. What they wear on their heads is more like a sheet. We should be calling them sheetheads."

Isler said the way he pronounced sheetheads turned the word into a vulgarism.

"My husband and I were shocked, felt insulted and distressed," said Isler, who is Muslim but does not wear a traditional head scarf or anything else that would identify her as such.

The passengers broke into laughter, Isler recounted.

The couple approached the driver.

"We're Turkish; we're Middle Eastern," she told him. "Can you appreciate how badly this makes us feel?"

"How would you feel if these sorts of things were said about you?" her husband asked.

According to Hilal Isler, the driver said he wouldn't mind -- responding in a voice that mimicked her husband's Turkish accent.

The Islers, who had spent the day visiting SeaWorld and outlet shops, left the bus upset but thinking they would let the incident go. A day after they returned to New York, however, Hilal Isler sent a letter to I-Ride officials.

"I imagine there are others who have been on the receiving end of this sort of treatment," she said.

When she didn't hear anything in response for a week, she sent another e-mail Wednesday morning. She also forwarded the e-mail to the Orlando Sentinel, saying she felt "slighted."

Luann Brooks, executive director of the International Drive Master Transit and Improvement District, which owns I-Ride, told the Sentinel that the driver had been identified on Thursday and dismissed.

Although the bus had no cameras to document what happened, Brooks said she believed Isler's account. She blamed the delay in action on the company's spam filter, which she said had blocked Isler's original e-mail.

"I don't know if the driver snapped or was having a bad day, but this conduct is not going to be tolerated," Brooks said.

Officials with Mears Transportation, which hires and trains the drivers for I-Ride, would not identify the man, whom Isler had described as a middle-aged white man.

But Roger Chapin, vice president of public affairs for Mears, said the driver "thought he was being funny."

Brooks said this was the first time in I-Ride's 10-year history that it has received a complaint of this kind.

She said drivers for the service, which gave nearly 2 million rides in 2006, are encouraged to interact with passengers and play the role of ambassadors to the area. They give directions and tourist information and ask if riders are enjoying Orlando.

The International Drive Master Transit and Improvement District was created in 1992 to design and operate the transit service in the International Drive resort area. One member of the district's advisory board, Sibille Pritchard of Orlando Plaza Partners, said she hoped the incident would not prevent others from vacationing in Orlando.

"This is something we don't condone," she said.

Sabiha Khan, executive director of the Orlando office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said she receives two to three complaints a month about discrimination against Muslims in Central Florida.

Mostly the incidents go unreported, she said.

At Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Hilal Isler is professor of anthropology and director of student diversity programs. Her husband is a professor of computer science at an engineering college.

This was Hilal Isler's third time to visit Orlando. At SeaWorld's Shamu stadium, she said, flying eagles and the American flag flashed on the jumbo screen. Audience members were shouting, "We support our troops" and "Go America," Isler said.

The scene irked her. "We are not at a military rally," she said.

"Maybe they don't want us here," she said. "We won't be back."

This was Hilal Isler's third time to visit Orlando. At SeaWorld's Shamu stadium, she said, flying eagles and the American flag flashed on the jumbo screen. Audience members were shouting, "We support our troops" and "Go America," Isler said.

The scene irked her. "We are not at a military rally," she said.

"Maybe they don't want us here," she said. "We won't be back."

They may have the papers but they are NOT Americans! You're right, that is really an outrage. And, you have to wonder WHY that would irk them..>> That's the very reason a lot of people don't trust Muslims because of those attitudes.

I can tell you right now the only people it is alright to to make racial slurs and jokes to are white Americans, and Christians. They seem to be fair game for whatever is said against them. I am getting about fed up with that myself even though I am half Choctaw, I resent deeply the jokes and outright racial animosity that is perpetrated on this segment of our population.

I am upset over blond jokes, fat jokes, jokes about women but no one cares and no one ever gets fired.

CAIR, they are trouble makers.,.I wish they'd go back to where they came from and change their country...and take our ACLU with them!

Mirthrindr,

Long time no see! Glad you stopped by.

Dixie

Well, this is America and if you don't like Americans you are always free to leave!