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‘Keep a low profile,’ US Arabs advised

By Akhilesh Upadhyay

New York, New York, Apr. 5 (IPS)— Abdo Zindani offers a piece of simple advice to fellow Arabs in the United States: “Be conservative. Keep a low profile.”

Then, after a measured silence, the Yemeni American issues a laundry list of don’ts: “try not to be outdoors as you normally would; young men, try not to travel in groups — three Middle Easterners together may trigger what they are looking for; traditional dress is out of the question.”

Zindani, of the Yemeni American League, believes that Islam-bashing has reached a historic high in the United States and that the Arab community is now under siege, a trend triggered by the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania that has hardened under an administration that has not missed an opportunity “to scapegoat Muslims.”

As the war in Iraq drags on, other community leaders and immigration groups assert that members of Arab and Muslim communities in the United States have never felt more vulnerable.

Days before US-led forces launched air strikes on Iraq last month, the New York Immigration Coalition appealed to Mayor Michael Bloomberg to ensure the safety of immigrant communities in the event of an ethnic backlash.

The coalition said that victims of hate crimes might not come forward, fearful that the police might report them or their family members to immigration officials. It called on Bloomberg to guarantee the confidentiality of the immigration status of hate crime victims who seek police protection.

Community leaders say they are disappointed at the mayor’s lack of response, including his absence from a memorial to four victims of attempted Arab-bashing.

Zindani’s organization this week marked the death of Yemeni Mohammed Ali Nassir, who was shot dead last month, one of four immigrants killed over the past two months by a New York native reportedly intent on exacting revenge for the Sept. 11 attacks.

The incidents are the most deadly series of hate crimes targeting immigrants in recent memory. Although “Arabs” were the intended targets, the victims were of diverse backgrounds — Guyanese, Indian, Russian, and Yemeni. Larme Price, who confessed to the shootings, described his victims as “Arabs.”

Other incidents have been reported across the country. In Phoenix, explosives were tossed into the home of an Iraqi-American family. In Chicago, a van parked outside a Palestinian home exploded and a mosque was vandalized. In Indianapolis, an Afghan restaurant owner was severely burned when he was set on fire, while in Los Angeles, Muslim women were threatened with rape.

According to one estimate, 80 percent of hate crimes go unreported in the United States due to a variety of factors, such as fear of police, lack of knowledge about civil rights and the failure to classify incidents as bias-motivated.

The Immigration Coalition says that Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians have been subjected to blanket law enforcement efforts and blunt immigration policies that target them en masse on the basis of religion and national origin.

It cited such incidents as the round-up and secret detention of more than 1,200 men after Sept. 11; a special registration program that mandates fingerprinting, photographing, and interrogation of males from 25 predominantly Arab and Muslim countries; and most recently, Operation Liberty Shield, which calls for the detention of asylum seekers from 33 mostly Arab and Muslim countries.

“A climate of hostility and suspicion towards Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians has been fostered by federal policies since 9/11,” says Emira Habiby Browne of the Arab-American Family Support Center. “When government policies single out and target one group of immigrants again and again, that stigmatizes these immigrants and creates fertile ground for bias crimes.”

“The trend that started after 9/11 has been rekindled after the events in Iraq,” says Shaker Lashuel, a Yemeni immigrant who teaches computer courses in New York’s public schools. He blames the US media for perpetuating Arab stereotypes to a gullible public. “If you are an Arab, you are a suspect until proven otherwise,” he says.

The practice has had a tremendous impact on the lifestyle of Middle Eastern immigrants, Lashuel adds. “I know at least one restaurant (in Brooklyn) that is about to close. The whole area is virtually empty. Everybody thinks they are under surveillance.”

When Washington announced its domestic war contingency plan last month it began targeting thousands of Iraqi and other immigrants for investigations, according to immigration groups, who point out that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials have repeatedly stated that immigration violators found during their interviews and sweeps will be detained and-or deported.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) compares the post-Sept. 11, 2001 backlash with instances of bias attacks on Muslims following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, when false media speculation about Muslim involvement led to a rash of attacks, although Sept. 11 spawned nearly eight times more incidents.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee says it has documented four confirmed cases of hate crime murders after Sept. 11, and seven suspected hate crime killings following the five-week period after Sept. 11.

Between Jan. 1 and Oct. 11 last year, it documented 165 cases of hate incidents targeting Arab Americans or those perceived to be Arab Americans, Arabs, and Muslims, a significant increase over most years in the past decade.

While community leaders acknowledge that many US citizens have made an attempt to understand Islam and its followers after 9/11, the negative fallout continues.

One irony is that members of minority groups that complained of profiling in the past have themselves begun to profile, says Lashuel, referring to the killings of Ali Nassir and other immigrants thought by their African-American attacker to be “Arabs.”

But, “this is not about a single deranged killer,” says Patrick Young, an attorney with the Central American Refugee Center. “This is about the climate of hatred against Arabs and Muslims, which has left many immigrants around the country dead, beaten, and frightened.”

Despite his friend’s murder, Lashuel is optimistic. “With all its flaws, America is still seen as a land of opportunities by the Arabs and there is a strong belief among their community members that the country is capable of correcting itself.”

Students fight for affirmative action

Apr. 7— Well over 50,000 people, including 10,000 from Michigan alone, rallied in front of the US Supreme Court on Tuesday in favor of the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policies, now under review by the Court. Students, union members, and other civil rights proponents traveled from all over the country to show their support for the University of Michigan (U-M), whose policies for promoting diversity within their community are under fire.

Supporters came from all areas of the United States. Student activists working with Students Supporting Affirmative Action and the Michigan Student Assembly packed 11 buses, and the Detroit chapter of the NAACP sent 135 buses.

While U-M has been vocal in its support of diversity on the campus, the diversity argument has been attacked by more radical students who recognize that affirmative action was put in place not to encourage diversity, but to be a minor step toward justice after hundreds of years of institutional and social discrimination against people of color in the United States.

Tim Wise, an anti-racist activist describing the need for affirmative action, said in an interview: “In the absence of formal requirements to ensure greater representation for persons of color and women in the private and public sectors, and institutions of higher learning, those persons will continue to be overlooked, irrespective of qualifications, ambition, or whatever else. Why? Because of ongoing race and gender bias, which has been documented by more sources than I care to recount here, as well as the institutionalized racism and sexism which operates through the old-boys network: a network, or set of networks, which disproportionately excludes people of color and women from the best jobs, schools, and a fair shot at government contracts.”

Despite the University’s efforts to combat it, racial isolation is an everyday experience for students of color at U-M. Monique Luse, political chair of the school’s Black Student Union and Students Supporting Affirmative Action spoke at the student rally for educational justice on Monday. “When you walk through this campus [as a student of color] you know that it was not made for you,” she said.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to release its decision in June.

Source: Indymedia