In my research into the incidences
of hate crimes in the United States,
what I was struck by again and again was
how often immigrants were assaulted,
apprehended, killed in their neighborhoods
when they were perceived to be out of place,
when they were perceived to be a threat, when they were perceived
to be a danger to the very social fabric of this nation.
They were hurt in bars.
They were hurt on sidewalks.
They were hurt on their lawns.
They were hurt while planting flower beds
outside gas stations where they worked,
gas stations, which they owned.
That's Balbir Singh Sodhi in Mesa, Arizona.
So the neighborhood is the site where social and public policy
play out.
We all know this.
And I want to read the playing out of one such site.
In February 2015.
Sureshbhai Patel, who was 57 at the time,
was visiting his son in Madison, Alabama.
He was a new grandparent, and the baby was born a few months--
I think, a few weeks ahead of plan.
And he had come by from the state of Gujarat
in India to visit as one does because love makes us move.
Love makes us fly.
Love makes us land and arrive.
And like many elderly Indian folks,
he was taking his morning walk.
We love to walk in the morning.
We love to walk after dinner.
Yoga is for the rest of them.
And when he was doing this in his son's neighborhood,
a neighbor called the police, citing a skinny black guy
prowling the neighborhood.
The cop car tracked him down just yards from his son's home.
He was assaulted.
He was thrown to the ground by Madison police officer Eric
Parker, and the assault left Mr. Patel paralyzed.
The lawsuit against Parker alleged a number of claims.
And I want to read these.
False arrest, improper search and seizure,
use of excessive force.
A year later, it will come as no surprise to most of you
here that Parker was acquitted of all civil rights charges
and reinstated into the Madison police force.
The moment at which Mr. Patel was assaulted in his own memory
is when he dropped his handkerchief on the lawn
and he bent to pick it up.
And that was perceived as a threat
by a trained police officer.
Handkerchief-- I want you to imagine the lightness
of a handkerchief.
It is a piece of cotton.
And I want you to think about the history of cotton
in this land.