A quick and dirty post, with some good links for those looking to catch up on the heck is up with the King hearings into the American Muslim Community.
The House Committee on Homeland Security site – the bare structure of the hearings, including panel composition, and, not for nothing, their actual name: “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response.”
My friend Dave von Ebers on the dangers of the constant drip-drip-drip of hate and dehumanization that goes beyond the events in Yorba Linda, and beyond high-profile Congressional hearings, and is simply part of some folks’ daily life: “The Consequences of Prejudice.”
My earlier post with suggestions (including sample scripts and letters) for responding to the recent wave of Islamophobia, including the fact that a member of the US Congress is casting aspersions on an entire faith community.
UPDATE: How could I have forgotten? Dean Obeidallah, a terrific Arab-American comedian best known probably for his appearances in the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour (which was outstanding, BTW), will be — and I am not making this up — live tweeting the hearings (!). He normally tweets at @deanofcomedy, but apparently during the hearings, he’ll be tweeting on the @whatunitesus account (the account associated with advocacy group WhatUnites.Us) — which is only right and meet, as what certainly unites us, on good days, is an ability to laugh at our all too human ridiculousness. And that’s what these hearings are: ridiculous. Check him/it out!
The observant reader is by now aware that I crosspost most of what appears here at Angry Black Lady Chronicles, a joint that gets less Black, but no less Angry, by the day. We are Team Benetton, hear us roar!
Be that as it may, Angry Black Lady is also a Lady With Many Smart Friends, and one of her friends, Kumar, drafted a really wonderful letter to his US Representative, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), in response to the ugly events that took place in Yorba Linda on February 13. I wanted to post it here, as it really is a terrific example of what these letters can look like. “I challenge you,” Kumar writes,”to toss aside your party affiliation and stand for dignity, respect and tolerance of all human beings, regardless of religion” — and that’s pretty much the whole enchilada right there, isn’t it?
Mr. Rohrabacher,
I am writing to an elected official for the first time in my 43 years.
I’m sure you know by now what took place in Yorba Linda on February 13th. I am referring, by the way, to the so-called protest, not the peaceful, family-oriented, faith-based humanitarian event that was disrupted in a shameful manner.
I call on you to speak up publicly and loudly AGAINST the participation of and encouragement by three elected officials, two of whom are your colleagues in Congress. As Federal Representatives, they are sworn to uphold the Constitution, but this video shows that they did exactly the opposite:
I think it should be abundantly clear from the exact words of the politicians at the “protest” that their views aren’t actually about freedom of speech or freedom of assembly or having alternative viewpoints. Rather, these officials are clearly speaking of restricting others’ freedom to practice the religion of their choice, and putting their support behind the generalizations that people make as a result of ignorance, fear and hatred. The latter should be repugnant to any decent human being, but the former is certainly more dangerous to a free society, particularly when government officials are involved.
I don’t know exactly how to implore you to do something about this, except to say “Do something about this!” I’m asking you to make it clear, in a public forum, that advocating the deaths of fellow citizens, solely based on their religion, is PRECISELY what this country was founded to overcome.
I don’t really care that you and these other elected officials are of the same political party or that you serve neighboring districts. In fact, I challenge you to toss aside your party affiliation and stand for dignity, respect and tolerance of all human beings, regardless of religion. If these elected officials’ actions are allowed to happen without consequence, then bigotry begins to become institutionalized in government offices.
Despite the popularized idea that Muslims are radicalized around the country in mosques, we find that mosques help Muslims integrate into US society, and in fact have a very productive role in bridging the differences between Muslims and non-Muslims in the United States. This is a finding in social science that is consistent with decades of research on other religious groups such as Jews, Protestants and Catholics where church attendance and religiosity has been proven to result in higher civic engagement and support for core values of the American political system. Likewise, mosques are institutions that should be encouraged to function as centers of social and political integration in America.
UPDATE: The “Today I Am a Muslim Too” rally (see #6) is now behind us (read about it here)but all of the rest of the following suggestions are still a go!
UPDATE #2: Make sure you read this post, too — it’s essentially a guestpost, someone else’s most-excellent letter to his Congressman.
In recent weeks, I’ve produced a couple of posts in which I call on folks to respond to the decision of Rep. Pete King (R-NY) to hold hearings into the “radicalization” of American Muslims, but as we saw yesterday, King’s hearings are not the result of a single, narrow mind, but are rather reflective of a broader wave of anti-Muslim bigotry and hysteria that gripped the nation on September 12, 2001 and has been roiling our society ever since.
I firmly, genuinely believe that the fight for the full inclusion of Muslim Americans into mainstream American society is one of the two defining civil rights struggles of our era (the other being the fight for LGBTQ rights), and I further believe that it is incumbent upon all Americans of good will to stand by their fellow citizens. So today, I’m going to make that a little easier for you. (more…)
On February 13, members of a faith-based charitable organization gathered in Yorba Linda, California to raise funds to support women’s shelters, help the homeless and combat hunger.
You can understand why, then, on February 13, a handful of elected officials — specifically: Yorba City councilwoman Deborah Pauly, US Congressman Ed Royce, and US Congressman Gary Miller — joined a group of a few hundred protesters (shouting such things as “Go back home!” and “USA!” and, for good measure: “Fuck you!”), in order to declare the faith-based philanthropic event “pure, unadulterated evil.”
By now, of course, you’ve understood that — oh! It must have been Muslims! Because if it had been Christians or Jews or Hindus gathered to do social justice work, at this point in American history, there would have been no angry, spittle-flecked faces.
No, no, it must have been Muslims, because Muslims — men, women, little boys, little girls, all of them dressed in their finest, hair brushed, party shoes on little feet, come together to help those who cannot help themselves — are clearly, unequivocally, “evil.”
Natch.
What red-blooded American elected official would not, under such circumstances, declare her pride in her 19 year old son, a Marine, and suggest — I’m sorry, not suggest, but rather, say flat out — that there are “quite a few Marines” like her son who “will be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in Paradise” (to the delighted laughter of the crowd).
What group of self-declared “patriotic Americans” who announce that they “love our Constitution” wouldn’t yell at Americans of faith on their way to a social justice event: “One nation under God, not Allah!” (patriotic Americans can’t be expected to know that the word “Allah” is simply Arabic for “God,” like the Hebrew “Yahweh,” a word patriotic Americans often use in Christian rock ditties).
What patriotic Americans wouldn’t yell at these other Americans (still on their way to help battered women and the homeless and the hungry): “Your hands are bloody! Your money is bloody! Get out!”
Indeed, what sitting member of this nation’s legislative branch wouldn’t reach out to a group of patriotic Americans screaming (and I do mean screaming) curse words at children and parents on their way to a charity event in order to say to the screamers: “I am proud of you, I am proud of what you’re doing.”
It was, after all, Muslims.
What do they expect, what with their headscarves and their beards and their belief in one God and the imperative to do good and their American citizenship and their trust in this nation’s founding documents, including that one bit that talks about freedom of religion? How dare they think they can just walk on into some building in California and raise funds for those in need? How dare they think they can bring their children and expect their children to learn about a life of good deeds and holy behavior? How dare they think that their government representatives (local and national) might not suggest that they are ripe for killing — I mean: ripe for being sent by members of their own military to “an early meeting in Paradise”?
How dare they.
The simple truth of the matter is that I’m ashamed to share citizenship with those protesters, and yet more ashamed to know that Deborah Pauly, Ed Royce and Gary Miller have any power, of any kind, in the nation that is my home.
They are the worst that this country has to offer. They are the dross of our society, the black hearts and empty shells against which the Framers sought to protect us in our founding documents. They are ignorant, they are dangerous, they are a blight and a stain — and they are, whether we like it or not, us.
I might not want to call these unholy miscreants “American” — but American they are. They are American, they are human, and however much I would set walls between us, I can’t.
I cannot wish them away. I cannot impose holiness upon them. I cannot force them to take on the mantle of the American values they currently trample with such glee.
I can only confront them with the truth, push the ignorance into the smaller and yet smaller corners, and build on the certain knowledge that they will not win the day.
Today, Japanese-Americans serve in the Administration of a black President, and the name “McCarthy” is shorthand for a time universally recognized as one of the darkest in American history.
Today, Americans of good will, of all colors and stripes, are horrified by the events in Yorba Linda. Across the country, across the airwaves, on the internet, in homes and in conversation, we are raising a hue and a cry, declaring our loyalty to our Muslim brothers and sisters in solidarity and faith.
Our union is not yet perfect, and it will likely never be.
But as we face down the remains of centuries of bigotry and hate, and bring our better angels to bear against the underbelly of American society, we make the union better. Stronger. More perfect.
“We the people” means all the people — and if a few hundred ill-informed bigots and their spectacularly un-American elected officials don’t know that, then it’s up to us, Muslim and non-Muslim Americans of good will, to let them know.
This is a moment on which our children will look back, and boggle at what innocent people had to face. It’s a moment in which some will shine as heroes, and others will go down in ignominy. It’s a moment that will help define our nation and our future, and it’s in our hands to decide if we will act in support of the American Idea, or stand idly by.
This is it. There’s work to be done, and we’re the only ones who can do it.
*****************
The event I describe above can be seen in the following video. It’s infuriating and more than a little disturbing, but I urge you to watch it — there’s something to hearing the tenor of the hate, and seeing the dignity with which people under verbal assault go about their business, that clears the mind and sharpens the senses.
A quick and dirty post, with some good links for those looking to catch up on the heck is up with the King hearings into the American Muslim Community.
Mr. Rohrabacher,
On February 13, members of a faith-based charitable organization gathered in Yorba Linda, California to raise funds to support women’s shelters, help the homeless and combat hunger.
Emily L. Hauser - In My Head 