Orange County Register - October 30, 2017
53% of Muslim students surveyed in California say they’ve been bullied over religion
By Deepa Bharath
ANAHEIM — Muslim students in California are bullied at a rate that is more than twice the average of Muslim youths nationally, according to a report released by the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The report, which was issued by the group’s Anaheim-based Los Angeles chapter Monday morning, Oct. 30, said 53 percent of the 1,041 Muslim students surveyed, between age 11 and 18 and enrolled in California’s public and private schools, said they were bullied in 2016 — mocked, verbally insulted or abused — because of their religion.
Nationally, according to a 2017 Department of Justice report, about 20 percent of Muslim students say they have been bullied.
In addition, 26 percent of the California Muslim students surveyed reported being victims of cyberbullying; 57 percent said they saw their peers make offensive comments about Islam and Muslims online; and 36 percent of female respondents reported having their hijabs, or head scarves, tugged or pulled off their heads.
This is CAIR-LA’s third bi-annual report on bullying of Muslim students, with incidents rising sharply in number compared to the 2013 and 2015 reports, said Masih Fouladi, advocacy manager for the group.
“We’ve also seen an emboldening of these bullies statewide,” he said. “There has been an increase in physical contact and aggressive acts such as the pulling of head scarves causing some students to stop wearing hijabs to school.”
The role of President Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim campaign rhetoric cannot be ignored, said Marwa Rifahie, a civil rights attorney with CAIR-LA and lead author of the report.
“The results of this survey reveal that Muslim students have had to carry a heavy burden every day at school by facing bullies whose religious intolerance is now being legitimized by a sitting U.S. president,” she said.
Survey results also showed an increase in offensive comments made by teachers, administrators and other school officials directed at the religion of Muslim students. Only 30 percent of students reported that they felt their problems were solved by an adult, a decrease from 42 percent in the 2015 report.
The answer to this increase in campus bullying is better training and education for students and teachers, Rifahie said.
“When teachers and students are less informed, bullying is more likely to occur,” she said.
Iman Saymeh, an Orange County parent, said her 15-year-old son was so traumatized by bullies in March that he didn’t want to go back to school.
“I’ve never seen him like that before,” she said. “He was crying. He was angry. He said kids circled around him, called him a terrorist and said horrible things like Muslim men rape women.”
Saymeh said she had to keep her son home from school for a day. But what’s worse was, she said, she didn’t get any help from school administrators. The boys who bullied her son were never held accountable, she said.
So, Saymeh took matters into her own hands, getting counseling for her son from area imams. She organized bullying forums for teens through her local interfaith council.
“My son could see that teens of other faiths and backgrounds were also being bullied, that he was not alone,” she said. “I think he’s able to cope with it better now.”
A Ventura family approached CAIR-LA as recently as last week when their seventh-grader was upset by a sheet of paper handed to him by his social studies teacher. Printed off a website, it detailed so-called aspects of Islamic Sharia Law including how a man could marry an infant girl and consummate the marriage when she turns 9 and that a man has “sexual rights” over a woman who is not wearing a hijab.
In that case, the student missed several days of school because he was afraid of his teacher and his classmates, but the school district has not taken any action, Fouladi said.
He says parents should watch for red flags and talk to children.
“If your child doesn’t want to go to school or comes home with missing items or torn clothes, it is important to find out what happened,” Fouladi said.
The incidents have increased since the presidential election, Rifahie said.
“It’s definitely a lot more extreme than before,” she said. “Teachers are beginning to take political positions and children are mimicking those behaviors.”
Schools should do more to improve counseling programs and provide better response to students who are bullied, Saymeh said.
“Schools really have the opportunity here to expand minds and educate the next generation,” she said. “But unfortunately, that’s not being done.”
http://www.ocregister.com/2017/10/30/53-of-muslim-students-surveyed-in-california-say-theyve-been-bullied-over-religion/
Hurriyet daily news - October 24, 2017
Are the Muslims of Europe the new ‘Ersatz Juden?’
BY MIRNES KOVAC
In the same way as an advertisement serves to commerce, propaganda is serving politics. It is not strange that in the midst of intra-European crisis scapegoats are in high demand. History teaches us that the weakest were always the best candidates for this role. Unfortunately, today this role is reserved for the Muslims of Europe. It seems that spitting in the face of Islam best compensates political unpopularity!
No matter how much Islam and Muslims are being perceived as a threat, (and no matter how huge are their own internal problems), in reality both are much more victims than culprits of the dangerous interventionist policy of Euro-Atlantic alliance in the last two decades. These had self-evidently created chaos in the Middle East. If we follow the despair in this principal living space of Islam (only in Syria the number of killed has reached almost five hundred thousand people) we can easily see that there is a prolonged state of siege, both internal and external. That siege deepens suffering and horrors of people of the Middle East on a daily basis and further destroys social tissue and cohesion of its societies. It drives millions of human beings to look for security and safety somewhere outside the war zone. And recently, the most popular destinations for refugees (not immigrants as they very intentionally misnamed) were lands of the West. Paradoxically, they seek refuge in the lands of those governments who more or less caused their turmoil by unprincipled interventionism. Today’s crisis in Syria has reached its peak and it is seriously threatening with the major world conflict.
Recently French President François Holland gave his contribution to the heinous propaganda of the satanization of Islam and Muslims. Hollande told the authors of book that was published under the title “A President Shouldn’t Say That…” and authored by two investigative journalists of Le Monde (Gerard Davet and Fabrice L’Homme) that “France has a problem with Islam.” The journalists composed the book from their private interviews with Mr. Hollande and reported sometimes very openly views of Mr. Hollande on various issues both in France and internationally. In the book, as Le Monde reported recently, Hollande confessed about the problems with Islam and Muslims. He is reported to have said that there are too many immigrants arriving in the country who “should not be there.” “It’s not that Islam poses a problem in the sense that it is a dangerous religion, but in as far as it wants to affirm itself as a religion of the Republic,” Hollande was quoted in the controversial book. “I think there are too many arrivals of immigration that shouldn’t be there,” the French president told Davet and L’Homme.
Probably the biggest problem in Europe today, for which it was claimed that represents the civilization founded on reason, is that it more than ever lacks humanity imbued with emotions. It was the concept of homo sentimentalis that contemporary European philosophers elevated to the level of value. However, this value is obviously losing itself in the aftermath of wider crisis of European identity. And it is very visible in the highly developed societies of Europe, especially in France currently led by Mr. Hollande. There is the open problem of populist movements that clearly indicates the troubles with identity. We could have seen this in the “unexpected” success of Brexit. What is next? What is the next stumbling block for Europe?
When protests erupted in the suburbs of Paris 10 years ago, in which cars and buildings were set on fire, some media called it the “French Intifada,” framing it in Arab-Islamic coloring. But these riots were against the limitations of integration, especially against non-economic integration. These were classical Western-style riots, and not the clash between the East and the West… Demonstrators demanded for themselves and for their children the same thing that others already had.
There is a general problem in Europe with populist movements, which can cause serious damage to the idea of Europe. For what is the identity of today’s Europe and is that identity possible at all? No one can answer this question right now. But, if we have the cases that all the problems of Europe are being addressed to endangered and ghettoized immigrant communities and that these accusations are coming from the most prominent political offices of the Old Continent – then that could create serious consequences not just for Europe but for the entire world. This can be seen in the announcement of Nicolas Sarkozy (if he get the nomination of the center-right) who promises very rigorous anti-immigrant policies in France.
A year ago, in October 2015, when Eastern Europe faced thousands of refugees, similarly alarms were raised by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. After waves of refugees who were expelled from their homelands in the Middle East, Mr. Orban exclaimed that “Islam never belonged to Europe.” After the issue calmed a bit and after we all saw that Mr. Orban had a problem with the EU immigration policy which Hungary could not follow, we clearly saw that the Hungarian prime minister had actually reached for the easiest solution: stirring up fear against Islam and Muslims. Did he solve the problem? No! But now Mr. Orban has a like-minded colleague from a much stronger European nation that has relied on an immigrant workforce for more than a century and which now has one fifth of its own population composed by either immigrant or immigrant-born people. The question is where will this dangerous rhetoric lead.
Are we witnessing the same propaganda like the one actively promoted against the Jews of Europe at the beginning of 20th century? We all know where this kind of hatred can lead. Are the Muslims of Europe the new scapegoats of Europe? Are they destined to be a kind of “Ersatz Juden” or surrogate Jews, like those at the beginning of 20th century on the eve of the Holocaust?
Unfortunately, Europe proved more than once that it has the capacity to turn to darkness and that it failed its promise of “never again” in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is very dangerous to attempt to solve current geopolitical problems by shortcuts and fears and by populism that is the main indicator of the identity crisis.
For what is the identity of today’s Europeans? Do I, as a native European Muslim, have the right to ask this question? Is Europe a Christian continent? Does it uphold Christian values? Is secularism the mere separation of state and church or is it a kind of artificial national ideology? Or is it a fake myth? Does anybody actually know what it means? Do “secular values” exist at all? Maybe these are questions Hollande should answer before pointing the finger at Islam and Muslims. Maybe the answers to these questions will help him find a scapegoat for his extremely low popularity.
Mirnes Kovac is a journalist and political analyst from Sarajevo. He is the author of the recently published book ‘The Siege of Islam’ and a regular columnist and commentator on the Middle East and Balkan issues.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/are-the-muslims-of-europe-the-new-ersatz-juden.aspx?pageID=238&nID=105277&NewsCatID=396
Truth Dig - September 29, 21017
“Policing the Black Man”
A book edited by Angela J. Davis
For several years in my UCLA class on “Race, Racism, and the Law,” many African-American (and Latino) students have discussed their harassment at the hands of police authorities in Los Angeles and elsewhere. They have spoken with anguish, detailing their pain, embarrassment, humiliation and anger. These young men, and some women, are academically accomplished, middle class, and law-abiding. All too often, these unpleasant encounters with police have occurred in the affluent community of Westwood and not infrequently on the UCLA campus.
Everyone in black communities knows of such unpleasant encounters with police, as well as broader injustices with the criminal justice system in general. Millions of African-Americans understand that people involved with any aspect of law enforcement, including police, school officials, prosecutors, judges, and jail and prison officers routinely act in racist ways, even if they are not explicitly conscious of their motivations. This is so well understood among most African-Americans that no scholarly or scientific studies are necessary to confirm such obvious historical truths.
Still, far too many white Americans still believe that civil rights advances in recent decades have solved racial problems, and that African-American complaints about police misconduct or worse are exaggerated or unfounded. A new book of essays, “Policing the Black Man,” edited by American University law professor Angela J. Davis, devastatingly shatters this myth. These essays reveal the tragic history of racial injustice in American law and especially how black men and boys have been and remain the chief victims of every feature of the system, including arrest, prosecution, sentencing, and imprisonment.
Not surprisingly, many of the essays detail some of the most horrific police beatings and killings that have garnered domestic and international attention: Abner Louima, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Oscar Grant, Michael Brown, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray and Philando Castile. None of the police officers involved in these cases has been convicted in court of any crimes, except former South Carolina police officer Michael Slager, who pleaded guilty to using excessive force in the 2015 shooting death of Walter Scott. These are only a few incidents, brought to light with media exposure; many others are likely to have occurred while no one was present with a camera or video recorder.
Many of the book’s essays address some of the historical roots of the racist practices of contemporary policing. Slave patrols, which began in the 18th century, consisted of white citizen patrols who searched slave quarters and sought to abort slave escapes or rebellions. They were the precursors to the police forces of the modern era.
The laws themselves, as well as specific practices, likewise contributed to the present discriminatory police and other legal arrangements against black men. Racist provisions in the original constitutional text, horrific Supreme Court decisions like Dred Scott v. Sandford, the civil rights cases, and Plessy v. Ferguson, the post Civil War Black Codes, lynching, convict leasing, and the infamous history of Jim Crow laws and practices all contributed to the grim contemporary reality of racist law enforcement practices. This history has led inexorably to African-Americans being 2.5 times more likely to be arrested than whites, 49 percent of black men expected to be arrested at least once by age 23, and being killed at far higher rates by police than white men.
A crucial dimension of the problem is explored in Katheryn Russell-Brown’s essay, “Making Implicit Bias Explicit.” Racial disparity in police stops, arrests, bail decisions, prosecutorial charging decisions, jury verdicts, sentencing, parole, and other determinations all reflect the deep implicit racial biases that have pervaded white attitudes for centuries in this country. The research is clear and depressing, as the author reveals: “Black skin evokes a different unconscious response than white skin.” A widespread and unacknowledged association between dark brown skin, wide noses and full lips leads many law enforcement officials at all levels to assume criminality and guilt.
Black Americans are perfectly aware of this reality. As Russell-Brown notes in her essay, the old expression in the black community is pervasive: “If you’re white you’re all right; if you’re brown, stick around; but if you’re black, get back.” African-American artists for generations have captured this feature of institutional racism.
Los Angeles artist Derrick Maddox, for example, in “You See Sinner, I See Saint,” reveals America’s racial divide by using the portrait of a young, dreadlocked, black man mounted on a wooden board. Above the portrait, “you see sinner” is handwritten in black. Below the portrait, “I see saint” is written. For millions of white Americans, black men are sinners, potential predators who deserve what they get from police officers, prosecutors, judges, and jail and prison officials. For African-Americans, the young man is the opposite: the hope for the future, a person on whom the race depends, a youth seeking education and opportunity in a society that will thwart him in numerous ways. This powerful artwork captures the essence of the entire book.
Another key essay by Renée McDonald Hutchins in “Policing the Black Man” addresses the volatile issue of racial profiling. This is an area where implicit bias against black men is pervasive. She reveals the legal basis for the often laughable justifications for police stopping young black men, including the infamous New York City profiling of “stop and frisk,” where, in 2012, the NYPD stopped more than 700,000 New Yorkers, 85 percent of whom were young black or Latino men. Ninety percent of the stops resulted in the targeted individuals being released after no evidence of wrongdoing was found.
The 1968 Supreme Court case of Terry v. Ohio has been the chief legal source of modern racial profiling. It permitted temporary stops and frisks of civilians even if police lacked probable cause, requiring merely “reasonable suspicion” to justify a police encounter. Although the court did not mention race specifically, it was well understood that it was central to its deeper rationale. “Reasonable suspicion” is regularly used to stop persons who “look like someone who committed a crime or is fleeing the scene,” “someone who is carrying a questionable package or anything else,” or “moving in an unusual manner.” Many young black men are well aware of these “explanations” from police officers.
One of the most compelling and poignant essays in the book is “Boys to Men: The Role of Policing in the Socialization of Black Boys,” by Kristin Henning. She writes perceptively: “Black boys are policed like no one else, not even black men.” Police have shot staggering numbers of young black boys, while juvenile African-Americans are regularly sent to adult prisons. They are routinely targeted in public schools as presumptive criminals and targeted by police stationed in the schools themselves. Frequently, through security cameras, metal detectors and other surveillance tactics, black boys are subject to arrest for minor offenses that in past years would have resulted in minimal school discipline.
These arrests in turn create criminal records that inhibit future employment prospects for young black men and contribute to the “school to prison pipeline,” a grim reality that intensifies American racial disparities. This is an especially pernicious feature of policing the black man. Moreover, it exacerbates the widespread ill will against police in African-American communities across the nation, fostering the long-standing racial divide that has existed in America since its inception.
Other essays address various key features of the problematic practices of American law enforcement officials. Davis, for example, writes about the impact of prosecutorial discretion. The charging decisions of law enforcement officials, plea bargaining determinations, and sentence recommendations have a huge—and racist—impact on the lives of black men in the United States. These discriminatory acts contribute to the racial disparity in the criminal justice system as a whole.
Likewise, few elected prosecutors in America are African-American. Ronald Wright’s essay reveals how contemporary election law discourages prosecutors who reflect the views of black citizens. Gerrymandering, the suppression of African-American voters, and public apathy combine to ensure that incumbent prosecutors, many of whom make racially discriminatory decisions regularly, remain in office for long periods of time.
Grand juries too play a crucial role in the overall racism against black men. Roger Fairfax’s essay persuasively demonstrates how prosecutors and police work hand in hand. Prosecutors largely control grand jury proceedings and have little incentive to seek criminal indictments against police officers with whom they work and on whom they rely for evidence. The highly publicized cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York; and Tamir Rice in Cleveland show prosecutorial unwillingness to indict their police killers.
A valuable feature of this book is its specific recommendations for change and improvement. Some of the conflicts between African-Americans and police can be addressed, for example, with training programs that teach officers to treat community residents with dignity and respect. Much more rigorous training—that encourages police to recognize their implicit racial biases and assumptions—can go a long way in dissipating distrust, and engendering cooperation rather than conflict between black people and the police who are ostensibly assigned to protect them.
Moreover, programs that train police and other law enforcement officials to enhance their knowledge of adolescent development could dissipate tensions in schools and on the streets. Some communities have launched such programs successfully, with emphasis on youth culture, coping skills, and the vital differences between normal adolescent behavior and criminal conduct. These programs also teach strategies to create safe and respectful encounters between minority youth and police. A critical reform would be to reduce or eliminate cops in schools. Police should be called to campus only in the event of serious criminality or disruption.
Finally, legal changes are essential if relations between African-American communities and law enforcement officials are to improve. As Hutchins suggested in her review of the various racist cases that the Supreme Court has handed down over the past several decades, “It is time to rethink those rules.” Alas, with the present highly conservative Supreme Court, this is a dubious possibility.
The suggestions and policies in “Policing the Black Man” are not trivial. They can have a huge impact on millions of people and they can save human lives. They should be pursued with all due vigor.
But like all liberal reforms, they cannot address the structural and institutional racism that has bedeviled America since its origins as a slave colony. The late Derrick Bell, one of the originators of Critical Race Theory, warned in “Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism,” that black people would never gain full equality in America. The intractable racism in this country means, regrettably, that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream remains unfulfilled. Still, efforts like Davis’ collection move us forward, however slowly and incrementally.
Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
www.amperspective.com Online Magazine
