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.
- Excellent one-stop shopping post at Mother Jones, laying out the backstory and facts of the hearings: Peter King’s Radicalization Hearings, Explained.
- 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.”
- Adam Serwer’s excellent post explaining why the composition of the panels is part of the problem,”King’s Strategically Arranged Hearing Panels”: “The only Muslims on the third panel will be people prepared to parrot King’s unsubstantiated, negative views of Islam and American Muslims.”
- Adam Serwer’s excellent post on the inconsistencies in King’s approach to terrorism as a concept: “But How Does King Feel About Hamas?”: “If King applied his principles consistently, he’d be calling for the Obama administration to negotiate with Hamas.”
- Adams Serwer’s excellent post (are you picking up on a pattern here? But I digress) on the facts of Muslim assistance to law enforcement in dealing with terrorism threats, “Terror Plots Foiled With the Assistance of the American Muslim Community”: “Rep. Peter King of New York [has been] repeating the widely held fiction that American Muslims don’t do anything to fight terrorism. Here’s a list of terror plots that have been foiled with the assistance of the American Muslims.”
- The study to which Adam refers in his post, “A Tracking of Plots by Muslim and Non-Muslim Violent Extremists Against the United States”: “Muslim communities helped U.S. security officials to prevent over 4 out of every 10 Al-Qaeda plots threatening the United States since 9/11. Muslim communities helped law enforcement prevent three-quarters of all Al-Qaeda related plots threatening the U.S. since December 2009.”
- A study that finds that — just like in the Christian and Jewish communities — the more religiously active American Muslims are, the more likely they are to participate in civic life: “American Muslims Find Mosques Help Muslims Integrate into American Political Life.”
- 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!
Mr. Rohrabacher,
Emily L. Hauser - In My Head 