9/11: September 11 Congressional Resolution introduced acknowledging gov't role in targetting South Asians, Muslims, Sikhs

From top left, clockwise: Representatives Judy Chu, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal.

A Congressional resolution was introduce acknowledging that in the aftermath of terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, individuals experienced hate and were targeted by the government on account of their faith, race, national origin and immigration status, and suggesting various forms of relief for those individuals.

U.S. Representatives Pramila Jayapal, WA-07, Ilhan Omar, MN-05, Rashida Tlaib, MI-13, and Judy Chu, CA-27, introduced Thursday a Congressional Resolution acknowledging the hate, discrimination, racism, and xenophobia that Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Sikh communities across America continue to experience two decades after the 9/11.

“We must fully condemn all manifestations and expressions of racism, xenophobia, discrimination, scapegoating, and ethnic or religious bigotry while also finally acknowledging the climate of hate that Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Sikh communities have experienced in the two decades since September 11, 2001,” said the Congresswomen. 

“As we acknowledge that our own government implemented harmful policies that unfairly profiled and targeted Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Sikh communities, we must also celebrate that these very communities have met these challenges with unwavering courage, strength, compassion, and resilience while uniting in the aftermath to advocate for civil and human rights — work which continues to this day to benefit all Americans.”

“Twenty years ago, our Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, Sikh, and South Asian communities experienced the acute pain of racist hate violence fueled by our country’s deeply entrenched polices of imperialism, surveillance, and racial profiling,” said Lakshmi Sridaran, the Executive Director of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). “We are hopeful that this resolution will center the accountability of Members of Congress to rescind the policies of the War on Terror and truly ensure the safety of all communities of color.”

The resolution also puts forward a series of recommendations to support those affected by the profiling and targeting that has occurred during the 20 years since the Sept. 11 attack. This includes:

• Creating an interagency task force to work with community-based organizations to review these government policies, investigate and document their impact, and dismantle those policies which continue to profile and unfairly target these communities.

• Holding hearings by congressional and civil rights bodies to explore the findings and recommendations of this interagency task force in consultation with and centering community-based organizations.

• Allocating resources to community-based organizations outside and independent of law enforcement that center the experiences and demands of Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Sikh communities to support the needs of victims of hate and state violence, including language support, mental health, comprehensive support, system navigation, and crisis response and recovery

• Calling on the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Health, and the National Science Foundation to work together to study the impact of hate, government targeting, and profiling on physical and mental health.

Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Sikh communities have long experienced discrimination and violence in the U.S., which intensified after the attacks. During the first week after the attack, community organizations documented 645 incidents of bias and hate against Americans perceived to be of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent. This climate of hate also led to bullying and violence in their everyday lives, in their workplaces, businesses, community centers and houses of worship.

The government also targeted Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, South Asian and Sikh communities with overreaching policing, surveillance, and criminalization policies that resulted in wrongful interrogation, coercion, detention, deportation, arrest, and incarceration. 

Principles like due process, presumption of innocence, and evidence of wrongdoing were replaced with humiliation, mob mentality, and guilt by association, contends the lawmakers. Border officials and government authorities also cast aside constitutional rights and engaged in discriminatory searches and seizures. 

Additionally, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and immigration authorities arrested and detained as many as 1,200 Muslims immediately after the September 11 attack, and none of these “special interest” detained people were ultimately indicted for terrorist activity. This hate and government targeting impacted the ability of these communities to exercise their constitutionally protected rights including to organize, speak, travel, and worship freely.

Among the host of local, state, and national organizations endorsing the resolution, are:

 American Friends Service Committee; American Immigration Lawyers Association; American Muslim Empowerment Network (AMEN); Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF); Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF); Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders for Justice San Antonio, TX; Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC; Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus; Asian Law Alliance; Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO; Asian Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote); Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Florida; Defending Rights & Dissent; DRUM – Desis Rising Up & Moving; Empowering Pacific Islander Communities; Ensaaf; Grassroots Asians Rising; Immigration Hub; International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP); Japanese American Citizens League; Muslim Advocates; Muslim Justice League; National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association; National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF); National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development; National Council of Asian Pacific Americans; National Japanese American Memorial Foundation; National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA); North Carolina Asian Americans Together; Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund; Sikh Coalition; and the South Asian Americans Leading Together.

“This resolution is a good step in acknowledging the serious and detrimental mistakes made as a nation in the aftermath of 9/11,” said Abed Ayoub, the National Legal & Policy Director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). “Hate crimes and discrimination faced by Arab, Muslims, and South Asians continue to this very day, and we need to work collectively to push back against the hate. 

"Additionally, for two decades the expansion of government surveillance and overreach under the guise of national security has gone almost completely unchecked; targeting primarily Arab, Muslim, and South Asian communities. It is time Congress reins in the post 9/11 surveillance programs and restores our rights and liberties."

“While we reflect on the pervasive hate and Islamophobia that has only deepened over the last 20 years, we must acknowledge the ways our own government has fueled harmful stereotypes and actively and systematically targeted Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, South Asian and Sikh communities,” said Hammad Alam, the Staff Attorney & Program Manager at Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus. 

“This resolution is a critical step in acknowledging the government targeting of our communities which predates 9/11 but exponentially grew afterwards. As we witness the devastating impacts of the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, Congress must support community-based organizations who are leading movements to fundamentally shift the foreign and domestic policies at the root of this violence,” said Fatema Ahmad, the Executive Director of Muslim Justice League. 

A copy of the resolution is available here.

EDITOR'S NOTE: More commentary, observations, tips and references from an AAPI perspective on Twitter. Follow me @dioknoed.

Running on Hate:: Anti-Muslim political campaigns aren't effective

ASAM NEWS

(Views From the Edge contributed to this article.)

A new report released by Muslim Advocates this morning (Oct. 22) found an overwhelming majority of candidates espousing anti-Muslim views have lost or are projected to lose their races.

The report places much of the current anti-Muslim rhetoric on the shoulders of Donald Trump. The report, Running on Hate, states that Trump’s candidacy, election, and presidency emboldened a new wave of anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists to run for office nationwide and at all levels of government, trying to capitalize on a deeply false premise: that smearing Muslims is a successful campaign strategy. 

An analysis by the civil rights group Muslim Advocates identified 80 candidates who ran on an anti-Muslim platform in local, state and national elections in 2017 and 2018. The report Running on Hate found only 11 to 14 percent of those candidates won their races are or projected to win their races.

The others face a serious blowback from voters including supporters of Donald Trump.

“These campaigns are successful at inflaming bigotry and violence against American Muslims, but not much else,” said Scott Simpson, public advocacy director at Muslim Advocates. 

“The voter data and interviews and the win-loss rates of candidates all point to the same conclusion: campaigning using anti-Muslim hate is a losing strategy. Anti-Muslim campaigns only appeal to a small and hostile sliver of the electorate. Vast majorities from both parties, almost every demographic group and every region prefer candidates who embrace religious freedom for American Muslims over the absurd anti-Muslim conspiracies that are proliferating in campaigns.”

“For years, a small yet resilient anti-Muslim conspiracy has lived on the margins of American politics with a beachhead on the fringes of the Republican Party: that there is an imminent Muslim threat aiming to take over the country through both violent and non-violent means,” theRunning on Hate report says. “This fringe has had modest electoral success for years, with several standard-bearers in Congress and statehouses, but the election of Donald Trump put one of their own in the White House for the very first time.”

Some of the races where anti-Muslim rhetoric has been raised include: 

State Rep. Rashida Tlaib running for Congressional District 13 in Michigan,
Minnesota state Rep. Ilhan Omar running in the 5th Congressional District, and Ammar Campa-Najjar running in California's 50th Congressional District.

According to the poll in the report, a survey of 1,000 voters, 18 percent of respondents said Muslims are good people. But 7 percent have a negative view of Muslims in general, while 5 percent believe they are good as long as they aren’t extremists. Two percent said their religion is false, 1 percent said Muslims are different, 1 percent said they are terrorists, and fewer than 0.5 percent said they should leave the country.

Seventy-one percent said it is inappropriate for candidates to speak negatively about Muslims during their campaigns. Fourteen percent said it is appropriate, and 14 percent were unsure or refused to say.

Only 8 percent, however, said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who speaks negatively about Muslims. Fifty-eight percent said they would be more likely to vote against that candidate, though it made no difference to 17 percent.

_________________________________________________________________________________

 

AAPI Vote 2018: Muslim American woman makes history in Michigan

Rashida Tlaib exults in her win in Michigan's Primary elections.

MICHIGAN'S ASIAN AMERICANS, no longer content to sitting on the sidelines, joined the political fray by running for state and Congressional offices.

Abdul El-Sayed and Shri Thanedar lost their bids to gain the Democratic nomination for Michigan governor but a Muslim American woman may have stolen the spotlight in Michigan's primary election Tuesday, Aug. 7.

State Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American, won the Democratic nomination in the 13th Congressional District. 

Tlaib has no Republican or third-party opposition for November almost guaranteeing that she will make history by becoming the first Muslim woman elected to the U.S. Congress. However, there may still be write-in opponents.

"The 13th District wanted a fighter and they're getting one," she tweeted this morning. "I am so humbled by the trust working families have put in my pledge to take on the corporate bullies and make policy that allows us all to thrive. I will not let you down."

Like many Democratic candidates, Tlaib has been critical of Donald Trump and his regressive policies, referring to his election as the "bat signal" that provoked many progressive women to run for office. 

Two years ago, she was arrested for disrupting a Trump speech in downtown Detroit, where she shouted at him that "our kids deserve better" and encouraged him to read the Constitution. She ran on a decidely left platform and was backed by the progressive Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution and Justice Democrats.

"She may be the first Muslim congresswoman, but she just opened the door for millions of Rashidas to follow. As a Muslim and Arab father of a 9-month-old baby girl, I've never felt more hopeful about my daughter's future," said Zaki Barzinji, the White House liaison to American Muslims under former President Barack Obama.

Gretchen Whitmer easily won the the Democrats' gubernatorial primary over her two rivals.

Last minute campaigning with  Sen. Bernie Sanders and rising star Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez helped El-Sayed surge past Indian American millionaire Thanedar, who faded down the stretch despite personal donations to his campaign of millions of dollars.

About two-hours after the polls closed Tuesday night, El-Sayed, whose parents are from Egypt, addressed his supporters whose cheers turned to tears when he conceded. 

"I like to think that even though I'm not going to get the opportunity to serve, now we've ignited a belief of what's possible in young people ," he said.

He pledged to support Whitmir's campaign in November against Republican Bill Schuette, Michigan's Attorney General.

In the 8th Congressional District Indian American businessman Lokesh Kumar failed to upset incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Bishop.

Fayrouz Saad, a Lebanese American and Indian American Suneel Gupta ran out of the running for the Democratic nomination for Congressional District 11. Two first-time candidates, former Obama administration official Haley Stevens will represent the Democrats against Republican Lena Epstein.

At the state level, Padma Kuppa, an Indian American, was unopposed in the Democratic primary for State House District 41. Doug Tietz eked out a win in a tight contest for the Repubican nomination.

Indian American Aditi Bagchi ran for the State House from District 38, and made a good showing garnering 34 percent of the vote, but eventually lost to Kelly Breen (49 percent).

___________________________________________________________________________