>PulauKakatua19 at 05:59, 28 September 2021

2021-09-28T05:59:08Z

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{{Short description|Racist hate group based in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States}}
{{Infobox Criminal organization
|name = Dotbusters
| image =
| caption =
|founding location =[[New Jersey City, New Jersey]]
|founded by =
|years active = 1975–1993
|territory = [[New Jersey]], [[New York (state)|New York]]
|membership =
|allies =
|rivals =
|criminal activities = [[assault]], [[hate crime]]
}}

The '''Dotbusters''' was a [[Anti-Hindu sentiment|Hinduphobic]] [[hate group]] in [[Jersey City, New Jersey]], that attacked and threatened [[Indian Americans|South Asians]], particularly Indians in the fall of 1975. The name originated from the fact that traditional [[Hindu]] women and girls wear [[Bindi (decoration)|bindis]] on their foreheads. Their members consisted of frustrated teenagers, mostly high school drop-outs and drug addicts.<ref>[https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/international/story/19871215-us-racist-dotbusters-go-berserk-in-jersey-city-799594-1987-12-15 US: Racist Dotbusters go berserk in Jersey City], India Today</ref>

In July 1987, they had a letter published in ''[[The Jersey Journal]]''<ref name ="NY Times 1987">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/12/nyregion/in-jersey-city-indians-protest-violence.html|title=In Jersey City, Indians Protest Violence|last=Marriott|first=Michel|date=12 October 1987|work=[[The New York Times]]|pages=1–2|accessdate=20 March 2011}}</ref>{{rp|1}} stating that they would take any means necessary to drive the Indians out of Jersey City:
<blockquote>
"I'm writing about your article during July about the abuse of Indian People. Well I'm here to state the other side. I hate them, if you had to live near them you would also. We are an organization called the Dotbusters. We have been around for 2 {{sic}} years. We will go to any extreme to get Indians to move out of Jersey City. If I'm walking down the street and I see a Hindu and the setting is right, I will hit him or her. We plan some of our most extreme attacks such as breaking windows, breaking car windows, and crashing family parties. We use the phone books and look up the name Patel. Have you seen how many of them there are? Do you even live in Jersey City? Do you walk down Central avenue and experience what {{sic|nolink=y|its}} like to be near them: we have and we just don't want it anymore. You said that they will have to start protecting themselves because the police cannot always be there. They will never do anything. They are a {{sic|nolink=y|weak}} race {{sic|nolink=y|Physically}} and mentally. We are going to continue our way. We will never be stopped."<ref name="pluralism">{{cite web|url=http://www.pluralism.org/ocg/CDROM_files/hinduism/dot_busters.php |title=Dot Busters in New Jersey|publisher=The Pluralism Project at Harvard University |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090211040741/http://pluralism.org/ocg/CDROM_files/hinduism/dot_busters.php |archivedate=2009-02-11}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Numerous racial incidents from vandalism to assault followed. Later that month, a group of youths attacked Navroze Mody, an Indian man of [[Parsi]] ([[Zoroastrian]]) origin, into a [[coma]], after he had left the Gold Coast Café with his friend. Mody died four days later. The four convicted of the attack were Luis Acevedo, Ralph Gonzalez and Luis Padilla, who were convicted of aggravated assault; and William Acevedo, who was convicted of simple assault.<ref name="NY Times 1989">{{cite web | last=James | first=George | title=Taunting Led to Killing of Executive, Trial Is Told | work=The New York Times | date=March 15, 1989 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/15/nyregion/taunting-led-to-killing-of-executive-trial-is-told.html | accessdate=2016-05-05}}</ref> The attack was with fists and feet and with an unknown object that was described as either a baseball bat or a brick, and occurred after members of the group, which was estimated as being between ten and twelve youths, had surrounded Mody and taunted him for his baldness as either "Kojak" or "Baldie".<ref name="NY Times 1989"/> Mody's father, Jamshid Mody, later brought charges against the city and police force of [[Hoboken, New Jersey]], claiming that "the Hoboken police's indifference to acts of violence perpetrated against [[Indian Americans]] violated Navroze Mody's equal protection rights" under the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]].<ref name="verdict">{{cite web|url=http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/959/959.F2d.461.91-5407.html|title=Verdict of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in ''Mody v. City of Hoboken'' (959 F.2d 461)|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120310144803/http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/959/959.F2d.461.91-5407.html |archive-date=March 10, 2012|publisher=[[United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit]]|website= [[Public.Resource.Org]]}}</ref> Mody lost the case; the court ruled that the attack had not been proven a [[hate crime]], nor had there been proven any malfeasance by the police or prosecutors of the city.<ref name="verdict" />

A few days after the attack on Mody, another Indian was beaten into a coma; this time on a busy street corner in Jersey City Heights. The victim, Kaushal Saran, was found unconscious at Central and Ferry Avenues, near a city park and firehouse, according to police reports. Saran, a licensed physician in India who was awaiting licensing in the United States, was discharged later from [[University Hospital (Newark, New Jersey)|University Hospital]] in [[Newark, New Jersey|Newark]].<ref name ="NY Times 1987"/>{{rp|2}} The unprovoked attack left Saran in a partial coma for over a week with severe damage to his skull and brain. In September 1992, Thomas Kozak, Martin Ricciardi, and Mark Evangelista were brought to trial on federal civil rights charges in connection with the attack on Saran. However, the three were acquitted of the charges in two separate trials in 1993. Saran testified at both trials that he could not remember the incident.<ref>{{cite news|last=Kaulessar|first=Ricardo|url=http://hudsonreporter.com/printer_friendly/2488227|title='DotBusters' victim looks back|work=[[The Hudson Reporter]]|date=May 2, 2009|accessdate=August 9, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160115052814/http://hudsonreporter.com/printer_friendly/2488227|archive-date=January 15, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The Dotbusters were primarily based in New York and New Jersey and committed most of their crimes in Jersey City. Numerous young men and women were attacked and harassed near [[Central Avenue (Hudson Palisades)|Central Avenue]] in the [[Jersey City Heights]], area during the period of 1975–1993 by the group whom many{{Who|date=August 2010}} say was based out of a Hopkins Avenue, Jersey City, home. Details are somewhat clouded on whom and what the gang actually went after, but numerous accounts of homes being burglarized and men being attacked in the middle of night have been recorded. Up until 1989, it seemed like a one-way battle until small groups of [[Patel]]s began to fight back physically all over the state and outlying boroughs of New York. A number of perpetrators have been brought to trial for these assaults. Although tougher anti-hate crime laws were passed by the [[New Jersey Legislature]] in 1990, the attacks continued, with 58 cases of hate crimes against Indians in New Jersey reported in 1991.<ref name="pluralism"/>

These incidents were a severe blow to the Indian immigrant community and jarred it into taking serious political action. While the violence seemed to be aimed at the Hindu community, where the wearing of the [[Bindi (decoration)|Bindi]] is most common, it is believed that the Dotbusters' actions were based on racial grounds, aimed indiscriminately at South Asian immigrants. A [[Columbia University]]–based group called Indian Youth Against Racism (later simply Youth Against Racism) documented instances of violence against Indians in New Jersey and helped implement a series of educational programs on South Asian cultures for students and faculty at a{{Which|date=August 2010}} Jersey City high school. The group also helped get a bill passed in the New Jersey Legislature that raised the mandatory penalties for "bias crimes."<ref name="pluralism"/>

The gang's activities were spotlighted again in June 2010, when a column by ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine contributor [[Joel Stein]] titled "My Own Private India"<ref>{{cite news|last=Stein|first=Joel |authorlink=Joel Stein|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1999416,00.html|title=My Own Private India|work=Time|date=July 5, 2010|accessdate=August 9, 2017}}</ref> made light of the use of a related epithet, "dot heads", in nearby [[Edison, New Jersey|Edison]] in the 1980s. (See [[Joel Stein#Controversial columns]])
The New Jersey-raised philosopher Falguni A. Sheth mentioned her mother's harassment by "Dotbusters", and subsequent indifference of the [[New Jersey State Police]], in an interview with ''[[The New York Times]]''.<ref name="Yancy Sheth 2015">{{cite web | last=Yancy | first=George | last2=Sheth | first2=Falguni A. | title=How Liberalism and Racism Are Wed | website=NYTimes.com | date=February 27, 2015 | url=http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/how-liberalism-and-racism-are-wed/?nytmobile=0 | accessdate=2016-04-24}}</ref>

== See also ==

* [[Anti-Hindu sentiment]]
* [[Anti-Indian sentiment]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20061030045827/http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1989/01/1989-01-09.shtml Hinduism Today article, Jan. 1989]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070926233552/http://www.boalt.org/ALJ/Volume_7/vol7_articles.html Asian Law Journal article, 2000]

==External links==
* [https://archive.today/20130123221104/http://www.fstdt.com/fundies/comments.aspx?q=48054 Jersey City Dot-Buster, The Pluralism Project]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070928140408/http://modelminority.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=103 Supreme Court to Mull New Jersey Hate Crime Law] (reprint of a ''[[The Washington Post]]'' article on the Dotbusters gang's activities and a similar series of subsequent attacks in the Edison–Iselin area of New Jersey)
* [https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/14/nyregion/jersey-murder-trial-is-bias-issue-for-indians.html Jersey Murder Trial Is Bias Issue for Indians]
* [https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/07/01/furor-over-times-edison-nj-escalates/ Wall Street Journal More Furor Over Time's 'Edison, N.J.']

[[Category:1987 crimes in the United States]]
[[Category:1987 in New Jersey]]
[[Category:Anti-Indian sentiment in the United States]]
[[Category:Anti-Hindu sentiment]]
[[Category:Asian-American history]]
[[Category:Gangs in New Jersey]]
[[Category:History of Jersey City, New Jersey]]
[[Category:Indian-American history]]
[[Category:Racially motivated violence against Asian-Americans]]
[[Category:Street gangs]]

Dotbusters - Revision history

>PulauKakatua19 at 05:59, 28 September 2021