Category Archives: racism

Anxiety Grows in Texas With Syrians Due to Arrive Soon  {Home of the Afraid and Un-American?}

No other state has taken a more aggressive approach to blocking Syrian refugees than Texas, which last week became the first state to try to bar the refugees by suing the federal government. Federal officials and lawyers for local relief organizations that work with refugees said states did not have the authority to turn away Syrian refugees and that denying services or benefits to refugees based on their country of origin or religion was unlawful.Those warnings have not stopped leaders in Texas, Michigan, Indiana, Tennessee, Oklahoma and other states from publicly refusing to accept the refugees. The tone of the debate has been, at times, extreme. One Nevada lawmaker, Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, told listeners of her radio show last month she was “not OK with Syrian refugees” and “not OK with terrorists,” adding, “I’m about to fly to Paris and shoot ’em in the head myself.”

Source: Anxiety Grows in Texas With Syrians Due to Arrive Soon – The New York Times

Dear Donald Trump, Meet My Very Scary Muslim Friends | A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

I honestly and from the deepest parts of my heart wish on you, Mr. Trump, never to be subjected to what these people had to go through: I hope you never know what it is to see your loved ones die in front of you. I hope you never know what it is to see your home destroyed as you drive away from it. I hope you never know what it is to be stuck in limbo, not knowing how to move on with your life or what to do. I hope you never have your worth as a human be valued by how much you can contribute to a society. I hope you never have to be labeled as a terrorist until proven otherwise when you are ALWAYS a perpetual victim. I hope you never have to deal with the likes of you.These are the more than a billion Muslim in the world, Mr. Trump, who live in hellish conditions, whose lives are always contingent upon powers higher up doing whatever they please with their homes simply because they exist on profitable lands, and whose worth as human beings is always dependent on the net price of the oil barrel.These are the more than a billion Muslim in the world who scare you but are incapable of doing any harm to you, while you get people to hate them, to draw weapons at them for simply existing, for believing that they are worthless.

Except you are not a hater of all Muslims, isn’t that right? Or is it that you only love those rich Muslims who build golf courses in your name and whose name you can use to say that you have “some Muslims who agree with you” akin to those people who have “gay friends” who agree with them that gay marriage is an abomination.

Isn’t that you with Hussain Sajwani, head of Dubai’s DAMAC group?

Entertain me for a moment, Mr. Trump, and answer this: How is it that you will screen for Muslims entering your beloved country on its path to greatness? Is there a Muslim gene you isolated? Will you get them to recite Quran verses? Where would that place me, a non-Muslim, who knows quite a few of Quran verses? Do you need me to recite them now or would that scare you?What you’re saying Donald Trump is not scary. Let me call it what it is, because most American journalists are somehow still shying away from using the word with you: it’s disgusting, revolting, bigoted, racist, Nazi-like and inhumane. Is your middle name Adolf? If not, I suggest you change it to that because the last time someone had such a message broadcast in such a way was post-WWI in Germany and we all know how that turned out to be.

Source: Dear Donald Trump, Meet My Very Scary Muslim Friends | A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

Donald Trump shows hate speech is now out and proud in the mainstream | Comment is free | The Guardian

Those who saw him only as an entertainer kept waiting for his Republican audience to get the joke and move on to more plausible candidates. But on Monday, after he called for Muslims to be prevented from entering the US, his presence had become so toxic, even his most dismissive detractors could ignore him no more.To cheers from the faithful, Trump read out a statement referring to himself in the third person: “Donald J Trump is calling for a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”Americans are used to such venom dripping from the lips of talk radio hosts and the occasional Fox News anchor. But to be uttered by the frontrunner for the nomination of one of the two main parties was more than many had bargained for. What once had been considered hate speech confined to the margins of political life is now out and proud in the mainstream. “Probably not politically correct,” Trump said afterwards. “But I don’t care”.

This is a large part of his appeal. He articulates the frustration and bewilderment of that section of uneducated, unskilled, low-paid white America, whose wages have stagnated and social mobility has stalled that is nostalgic for its local privileges and global status. In recent times, they have lost wars, jobs, houses and confidence.So when he brands Mexicans “rapists”, Chinese “cheats” and all Muslims potential threats he gives free rein to their insecurities about an increasingly cosmopolitan and less predictable world they feel they have been excluded from.To that extent, his base is not too different from that of the Front National, which just triumphed in the French regional elections, Ukip or any of the range of far-right parties currently making headway in Europe.

Source: Donald Trump shows hate speech is now out and proud in the mainstream | Comment is free | The Guardian

L.A. County supervisors vote to welcome Syrian refugees – LA Times

The supervisors also voted to send a letter to President Obama and the county’s congressional delegation “expressing the board’s support of federal efforts to help Syrians fleeing violence and oppression and to increase the overall number of refugees that the U.S. will resettle over the course of the next two years.”The question of how many refugees from Syria the United States will take in and where they will live has become politically charged in recent weeks. More than 30 state governors, mostly Republicans, have voiced concerns that extremists could infiltrate the United States and vowed to stop the refugees from settling in their states.

Source: L.A. County supervisors vote to welcome Syrian refugees – LA Times

Met blasts Donald Trump for ‘London police in fear’ claim | US news | The Guardian

After controversial remarks about Muslims in US, presidential hopeful criticised for saying UK capital’s streets are so radicalised officers ‘are afraid for their lives’

Source: Met blasts Donald Trump for ‘London police in fear’ claim | US news | The Guardian

Islamophobic Organization’s Misleading Poll Used To Justify Donald Trump’s Call To Ban Muslims From America | Research | Media Matters for America

Source: Islamophobic Organization’s Misleading Poll Used To Justify Donald Trump’s Call To Ban Muslims From America | Research | Media Matters for America

Ted Nugent Compares Liberals To Rabid Dogs To Be Put Down–Calls For America To ‘Cleanse’ Itself – Forbes

Nugent when speaking of American liberals:I don’t care why he’s foaming at the mouth, I don’t care how he got rabies, he’s rabid, get rid of the damn dog. When Old Yeller brings us slippers, give him a biscuit; when he foams at the mouth, you shoot him between the eyes. Any questions? You got to do it. America, you got to cleanse this country.

Source: Ted Nugent Compares Liberals To Rabid Dogs To Be Put Down–Calls For America To ‘Cleanse’ Itself – Forbes

On slavery, 150 years later

Slavery still matters.I mentioned tracing my mother’s family history through ancestry.com. It’s as easy as clicking a button. There are always records, remnants of a life once lived, to be explored. Some came from Germany in the 1850s, others from England in 1610. My father’s side of the tree ends with a maybe. Maybe the names I’ve stumbled across in those inventories and in ancestry belong to my relatives. Maybe. Their names, their stories, are lost among the rest of my father’s family, leaving only partial truths and half told stories. That loss will always matter to me.

Source: On slavery, 150 years later

Michigan GOPer Blames School Problems On Black Children | Crooks and Liars

Yes, you read that right. Poor kids and children who aren’t white are the reasons school districts fail. It has absolutely nothing to do with funding or the state’s commitment to helping those children succeed.

Source: Michigan GOPer Blames School Problems On Black Children | Crooks and Liars

Muslims in America Condemn Extremists and Fear Anew for Their Lives – The New York Times

in recent weeks, American Muslims have reported a spate of violence and intimidation against them: women wearing head scarves accosted; Muslim children bullied; bullets shot at a mosque in Meriden, Conn.; feces thrown at a mosque in Pflugerville, Tex.Omair Siddiqi said he had been about to get into his car in the parking lot of a shopping mall in the Dallas suburbs last month when a man came up to him, flashed a gun and said, “If I wanted to, I could kill you right now.”Mr. Siddiqi said he stayed quiet and the man walked away. Mr. Siddiqi called 911 and is now in the process of getting a concealed-handgun permit. “It’s very scary in times like this,” he said.In a Dallas suburb, about a dozen protesters congregated outside the Islamic Center of Irving last month, some covering their faces with bandannas and carrying hunting rifles, tactical shotguns and AR-15s. The group that organized the protest posted on Facebook a list of the names and addresses of dozens of Muslims and what they called “Muslim sympathizers.”

Source: Muslims in America Condemn Extremists and Fear Anew for Their Lives – The New York Times