As an Arab American, I can empathize with Shirley Sherrod, In the midst of this crisis, I wrote a number of short pieces on a few websites charging that she had been "lynched" and was a victim of a hysterical mob spurred on by lies and cowards in authority who, out of fear or political calculation, had sacrificed her to a mob refusing her right to a fair hearing.
I understood her plight because I, and many other Arab Americans and American Muslims, had endured similar treatment. Over the years a veritable industry has developed of anti-Arab groups and individuals whose job it has been to track our progress and to challenge our every advance with smear campaigns. Taking our quotes out of context, making patently false and sometimes bizarre claims that fabricate connections with terror groups and extremists, these characters and the websites and right-wing publications who use their work have directed their attacks against many prominent Arab and Muslim Americans and those in government or business who work with us.
This is what happened to my son more than a decade ago, when he worked for a time at the Department of State. The same types of attacks have followed my every move for decades. When in 1993, Vice President Al Gore asked me to head up a project he was launching to support economic development in the West Bank and Gaza, one of the professional Arab bashers wrote a piece suggesting I had been supportive of terrorists. Using this material, a prominent liberal magazine editorialized that Gore should remove me from the post. To his credit, Gore defended me and arranged a meeting with the magazine's editor. When the editor produced the quote I was alleged to have made and I shared with him the full text of what I had said, he recognized his error and apologized. But the attacks never stopped. When I was invited last year to deliver the closing remarks at a Department of Justice conference, a right wing researcher published an article describing me as "[Attorney General Eric] Holder's Hizbollah Buddy" and when I addressed last year's Pentagon Iftar dinner, another of these anti-Arab hatchet men wrote a piece in a conservative magazine noting that a "well known Wahhabi supporter" spoke at the Pentagon.
Much the same has been experienced by others in my community. An Arab American state legislator in Michigan, and even the newly crowned Miss USA were falsely accused of Hizbollah ties. Young attorney Mazin Asbahi was forced to resign from the Obama campaign over similar fabricated charges.
And even now a new storm is brewing. A new mosque is being planned in an area near Ground Zero, the site of the terrorist attack that killed 3,000 innocents on September 11, 2001. Some local groups have objected and have been supported by the likes of 2012 presidential aspirants Sarah Palin, who called the mosque a "stab to the heart," and Newt Gingrich, who saw the mosque as part of a larger challenge arguing that "America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization."
A conservative magazine accelerated the assault with a personal attack on the mosque project's leader, Imam Faisal Abdul Raouf -- a truly honorable man with a long record of promoting peace and reconciliation. Using the now familiar tools of half quotes, fabricated connections (described by another writer as: "his wife has an uncle who used to be "a leader" of a mosque that now has a Web site that links to the Web site of an allegedly radical organization"), and innuendo, the article attempts to portray Imam Faisal as a suspicious and even dangerous threat. And now Congressman Peter King, the Republican ranking member of House Homeland Security Committee has called for an investigation into Faisal Abdul Raouf.
And so I understand Shirley Sherrod. I know what she has endured and while I celebrate her vindication, I know we, as Americans, are not yet out of the woods. Something is fundamentally rotten in our political culture -- where groups seeking political advantage can so easily make victims of innocents and cowards will let good people pay a price rather than defend their rights to a fair hearing.
The Shirley Sherrod incident that has played out in prime time this week has had all of the same elements and ingredients as Andrew Breitbart's previous smear against ACORN.
But we're working on cleaning house. And senate.
So true MyAhaMoment. That's exactly what it is, and I've said the same thing for years. And the same thing is true unfortunately for people across all levels of intelligence.
While the election of a black man as President served to increase the uneasiness of many whites about the future, it galvanize bigots and fear mongers into action. Political opportunist of the right, sensing possible advantage have resurrected and old approach; label, demonize, criminalize, and convict without fair hearing.
"They" are taking over the country. "They" are not truly American. "They" hate us and want to rule us. "They" are violent, unscrupulous, and hate us. "They" would end "Our" American way of life. But most of all they can't be American! Multiculturalism is a lie! Political correctness is unrealistic. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. Fear those who are different.
Its an old tune. Are you now or have you ever been a progressive?
She was dead serious about it, and convinced that this Muslim takeover of the country is going on right now - apparently right under our noses, and no one is noticing.
It turned out from what she said that she'd heard all this online.
The root of the story - the only fact in it all - was the mosque that may or may not be built near ground zero.
Everything else she was ranting about was total right-wing BS scaremongering.
THAT is the kind of thing that's poisoning the minds of a significant portion of the country - aka Republicans.
They're using racist fearmongering to try to motivate white Republicans to vote in large numbers the same way they used homophobic fearmongering to motivate anti-gay Republicans to vote in 2004 with all those anti-gay-marriage ballot measures in swing states.
Does it NEVER occur to Republicans to try to get themselves reelected by just doing their job well?
Why do they always feel they have to stoop to slimy dirty tricks and divisive wedge issue fear and smear tactics?
How can so many people be so hateful now in this country, still not accepting that we are ALL made of the same elements, the same God-given spirit,---fellow travelers on the same troubled, yet beautiful, earth? What a waste of our time here to spend it in hate!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jonathan-david-farley/the-national-association_b_657056.html
Extremism is the most self destructive thing we can engage it- you can see how crazy it is on some of the GZ Mosque threads. It's a huge controversy among those of us who are connected to the WTC and my feeling is that the Cordoba center would be a wonderful asset to have. Anything that promotes understanding and peace must be built and those who take offense at it, have issues no common sense or appeal to fairness will fix.
I hope we wil see better times - for all of us.
I can still walk every hallway in my mind, having worked at 7WTC for six years. I used to do a power-walk during lunch across the bridge to 5WTC, then over to the WFC, through that complex, circling back across the bridge to 7WTC. In all 1/2 mile. Air-conditioned and dry all the way, except for the first little bit across the bridge from #7 to #5.
So few courageous to testify.
We're changing that minute by minute.
Tears of rage turn towards infinite.
Strength grows where pain overwhelmed.
Each hit taken surges adrenaline through core.
Heart takes on courage, brain-body unifies.
Whole being senses all will exemplify.
Each follow lead birds - holding formation
Each glides - not fall this long voyage.
Conscience compass guided through pineal
True bearings we feel.