www.amperspective.com Online Magazine
Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2016)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
March 2016b
Where were they radicalized? Here are six instances of Trump supporters getting violent
March 15: Here’s a question: Are Trump supporters violent? Yeah, of course we know that not all Trump supporters are violent – it would be ridiculous to generalize a huge group of people based on the actions of a few…oh wait. As the GOP frontrunner continues to pick up victories during primary season, his momentum and support base has become more emboldened. With each passing day, the level of hateful rhetoric emanating from the campaign continues to shock the world. But something funny is happening: Trump’s popularity continues to rise as the hate rhetoric continues to flow. During a stump speech in South Carolina, he spoke wistfully about torture, collective punishment and a sickening legend where General Jack Pershing used ammo dipped in pigs’ blood to execute Muslim captives in the Philippines during the early 1900’s. The anecdote was largely debunked by Snopes, yet Trump resurrected the very same story this week in Ohio. Trump has also openly supported violence against the growing number of protestors who attend his rallies – offering to pay legal fees for those who commit acts of violence. Judging by recent headlines, it is difficult to classify this as just rhetoric or bluster. There has been a sharp upswing in violent incidents taking place at the hands of Trump supporters at rallies and beyond. Let’s look at 6 of these examples:
1. Wichita, Kansas: Man screaming “Trump! Trump!” attacks Muslim, Hispanic students. A Wichita State University student reports that he and his friend were attacked over the weekend outside a local Kwik Stop convenience store. The assailant began hurling insults at Khondoker Usama – WSU’s student body Vice President and the friend, saying “brown trash – go home. Trump will win.” The confrontation escalated to physical violence, where the perpetrator punched the student repeatedly. Usama then called the police as the suspect fled. 2. New Hampshire: Trump Campaign official arrested in connection with Bundy Ranch standoff. In the fallout of the infamous armed-Oregon standoff, where we saw many members of the Bundy family (including patriarch Cliven) arrested on federal charges – we also saw individuals arrested in connection with the 2014 standoff in Nevada. Jerry Delemus, who was the New Hampshire co-chair of “Veterans for Trump” was arrested on several charges. Delemus’ wife Susan, is a state representative and an avid supporter of the Trump campaign. Prior to his arrest, Delemus made headlines for an attempted “Draw Muhammad” rally in New Hampshire. 3. Louisville, Kentucky: White Supremacist physically, verbally assaults black protestor. In yet another disturbing video that emerged from a Trump rally, University of Louisville student Shiya Nwanguma is shown being physically and verbally assaulted while being walked out of the event. As Nwanguma stated, she was called “n****r” and “c**t” and was pushed by white nationalist Matthew Heimbach. The neo-Nazi leader admitted pushing Nwanguma, however was not removed from the event nor charged with a crime. 4. Fayetteville, North Carolina: White Trump supporter sucker-punches black protestor at rally. As protestors were being escorted out of the Trump rally in Fayetteville, NC – 78-year-old John McGraw took it upon himself to sucker-punch an unsuspecting Black Lives Matter protestor. McGraw was arrested for the punch and charged with assault. 5. Miami, Florida: Immigration protestor dragged on ground, kicked by Trump supporters.In the midst of the backdrop of Trump’s inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants being “rapists” – an immigration protest was held at a rally in Miami. In one of the most disturbing scenes of the campaign season, protestor Ariel Rojas was dragged on the floor by his collar, while being kicked and jeered by Trump supporters. The crowd began shouting “U.S.A! U.S.A!” 6. Richmond California: Trump Supporter Arrested, Plotting to Bomb Muslims. 55-year-old William Celli was arrested in Richmond, CA in an attempt to bomb the local Muslim community. Celli was known to have made threats against the local community, and had openly espoused support for Donald Trump. Police seized a device from his home, that may have been used in a potential attack. On his Facebook page, Celli espoused hatred for Hispanics and Muslims alike, and said he would follow Trump “to the end of the world.” [By Imraan Siddiqi – Mondoweiss]
School may expel Muslim teens for standing up to bullies — after ignoring their pleas for years
March 15: Two Muslim teens say their New York school has ignored about bullying for years — and now they may be expelled for fighting back.Adam and Jameel Siam said they have suffered anti-Muslim harassment for at least two years at Williamsville East High School, but they said administrators have done nothing to address their complaints, reported WIVB-TV. The boys have attended schools in the western New York village since preschool, but they said the bullying has recently grown worse. They’re hounded on social media and harassed in the hallways at school, and vandals broke windows and doors at the family’s home over the weekend by throwing rocks and eggs. The boys have filed at least two reports with Amherst police, the TV station reported — once after a fight in December and then again after their home was vandalized. Their mother said she has repeatedly asked school officials to help stop the bullying, but she said her complaints have been ignored. Now the boys face an expulsion hearing after fighting with their tormenters.The disciplinary hearing had been scheduled for Monday (March 14) but was pushed back, and the school superintendent declined to comment specifically on the matter but said administrators took bullying seriously and would punish any behavior that compromised student safety. [Raw Story]
Muslim Legislative Day in Kansas
March 15: A group of Muslim community and interfaith leaders from across the state visited today the State Capitol in Topeka and meet with lawmakers during “Muslim Legislative Day.” The event was cosponsored by CAIR-Kansas and Kansas Interfaith Action. Muslim Legislative Day is intended to build relationships with lawmakers; to answer any questions or address any concerns they may have about the Muslim community in Kansas; and to ask for the same level of respect and representation for Muslims in Kansas that all other constituents are entitled to. Kansas Interfaith Action is a statewide, multifaith issue-advocacy organization that "puts faith into action" by educating, engaging and advocating on behalf of people of faith and the public regarding critical social, economic, and environmental justice issues. CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding. [CAIR]
Bernie Sanders turns out the Somali vote in Ohio
March 15: Bernie Sanders campaign is, try to mobilize the state’s sizable population of Muslim refugees, who are energized to vote in the face of the threat of Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders called Mahdi Taakilo personally, while former the Secretary of State did what many politicians do, and got one of her staffers to ring up Taakilo and tell him Clinton was the only choice. “I don’t think Hillary Clinton can beat Trump,” Taakilo, 39, a Somali American community organizer and journalist in Columbus, Ohio told The Daily Beast. More than that: “She takes everybody for granted.” Brian Meyers, 51, a Sanders volunteer who lives in Circleville, Ohio south of Columbus, said that the campaign is trying to get anybody and everybody to the polls, with about a dozen other Bernie boosters using their own cars to transport voters. The Somali community reached out to the Sanders campaign, asking for transportation help, Meyers said. "From what I understand, they like his immigration policy," Meyers said, and have found it hard to vote in the past. Although Somali Americans who were born in the U.S. speak English fluently, their parents, who came here as adults, come up against a language barrier that can be intimidating. “Taakilo, who came to Ohio fleeing warfare in Somalia in the 1990s, isn’t the only one who feels the Bern among 38,000 Somali Americans who live in central Ohio. There is a large cohort of second generation Somalis, either born here or naturalized citizens, some of whom are voting for the first time. For Somalis, almost all of whom are Muslims, Donald Trump’s rise is terrifying with his talk of banning Muslims and saying, "Islam is at war with us." [Daily Beast]
Kansas Muslim leaders visit state capitol, meet with legislators
March 15: Today, the Kansas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Kansas) joined a group of Muslim community and interfaith leaders from across the state to visit the State Capitol in Topeka and meet with lawmakers during “Muslim Legislative Day.” The event is cosponsored by CAIR-Kansas and Kansas Interfaith Action. Muslim Legislative Day is intended to build relationships with lawmakers; to answer any questions or address any concerns they may have about the Muslim community in Kansas; and to ask for the same level of respect and representation for Muslims in Kansas that all other constituents are entitled to. Kansas Interfaith Action is a statewide, multifaith issue-advocacy organization that "puts faith into action" by educating, engaging and advocating on behalf of people of faith and the public regarding critical social, economic, and environmental justice issues. [CAIR]
Ted Cruz appoints leading Islamophobes as foreign policy advisers
March 17: The seven million-strong American Muslim community was disappointed by the Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz for appointing leading Islamophobes, Frank Gaffney Jr., and retired Lieutenant General William G. "Jerry" Boykin as foreign his policy advisers. Frank Gaffney's organization, the Center for Security Policy (CSP), has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). "Once a respectable Washington insider, Frank Gaffney Jr. is now one of America's most notorious Islamophobes," wrote the Southern Poverty Law Center in its profile of Gaffney, who it dubbed an extremist. "Gripped by paranoid fantasies about Muslims destroying the West from within." MSNBC's Chris Matthews has referred to Gaffney as "one of the country's leading anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists." Another Cruze adviser, retired Lt. General William G. "Jerry" Boykin, has stated that "[Islam] should not be protected under the First Amendment." Boykin also advocates that there should be "no mosques in America" and that there can be no interfaith dialogue or cooperation between Muslims and Christians. In 2012, Boykin's withdrew from a prayer breakfast at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point following a controversy over his bigoted views. As reported by the New York Times on January 30, 2012, “Plans for a talk at West Point by a retired general known for his harshly anti Muslim remarks were abruptly canceled on Monday after a growing list of liberal veterans’ groups, civil liberties advocates and Muslim organizations called on the Military Academy to rescind the invitation.” Lt. General William G. "Jerry" Boykin is a retired US Army Delta Force and Green Beret commander and the Executive Vice President of the Family Research Council. [AMP Report]
Trump selects sectarian propagandist Walid Phares as foreign policy advisor
March 21: The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) today expressed its disappointment at the selection of a proven sectarian propagandist to be foreign policy advisor by the GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump. An ADC statement said: “Thus far, Trump has taken almost every opportunity to create division among Americans. Because of this, his selection of Dr. Walid Phares as one of his five foreign policy advisors is consistent with his political platform of promoting bigotry and sectarianism. It is deeply disappointing nonetheless. A well-known sectarian propagandist and war criminal, Dr. Phares served as a high ranking political official in the “Lebanese Front,” a sectarian religious militia responsible for massacres during Lebanon’s brutal, 15-year civil war. Dr. Phares was also part of the “Guardians of Cedar,” a militia group with the slogan “Kill a Palestinian and you shall enter Heaven.” Dr. Phares joined Fox News in 2007, and often promotes Islamophobia under the guise of being a counter terrorism expert. The decision to select a proven anti-Muslim propagandist as his foreign policy advisor is particularly troubling in light of Donald Trump’s escalating anti-Muslim rhetoric. After advocating for the banning of Muslims from entering the U.S., there have been a record number of hate crimes, and incidents of discrimination targeting Arabs, Muslims and those to be perceived to be Arab or Muslim. Trump’s campaign of bigotry and xenophobia has already attracted the support of many domestic hate groups, and the selection of Dr. Phares broadens the Trump campaign’s appeal to include international sectarianism as well.” In December the ADC called on Trump to drop out of the race and renewed its call on March 21, 2016. [ADC]
Senator Cruz exploits Brussels tragedy to attack religious liberty in America
March 23: American Muslim civil advocacy groups have condemned the GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz for exploiting the Brussels tragedy to suggest patrolling of Muslim neighborhoods. While speaking about the Brussels attacks yesterday, Sen. Cruz said that the United States should “empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.” The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), in a statement, said unfortunately the attacks have been used by politicians, such as Senator Ted Cruz, as justification to promote broad anti-Muslim and anti-Arab policies that would violate the constitutional rights of millions of Americans. The ADC said American politicians, in particular those running for President, must affirm the constitutional rights of all Americans, and refrain from using divisive rhetoric that blames American Muslims for the heinous attacks of ISIS. Senator Cruz is insisting that innocent Muslim Americans be targeted for extra surveillance solely on the basis of their religion, regrettably such surveillance programs which target Muslim and Arab Americans are already in place, the ADC said. The ADC called on Senator Cruz to repudiate these anti-Muslim comments and affirm his commitment to protecting the First Amendment rights of all Americans, not just those who share his religious beliefs. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also condemned the statement of Cruz. Washington Post quoted Richard Primus, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Michigan, as saying “If Cruz meant this in the latter sense, it’s constitutionally problematic.” “If we interpret this to mean that law enforcement should count the fact that a neighborhood is heavily Muslim as a reason to increase resources devoted to policing it, that’s an equal protection problem,” Primus said, adding that it might run afoul of the 5th or 14th amendments, depending on whether it were undertaken by state or federal law enforcement agencies. “That’s because it selects on the basis of a suspect classification — religion,” Primus says. “If the government wanted to defend such a thing, it would have to go into court and say, ‘We have a compelling national security interest that overrides the normal rules against discrimination.'” [AMP Report]
California Muslim student is called a terrorist, has hijab tugged
March 23: A 13-year-old Muslim girl said she is afraid after a Hayward classmate called her a terrorist and pulled at her hijab last week."He asked me twice if I was a terrorist," the Cesar Chavez Middle School seventh-grader said today. "Then he pulled my scarf to the side." The girl said she told the teacher, who just told the boy to stop. So she went to her next teacher, who reported what had happened to the school vice principal. "I felt really scared and didn't know what to do," the girl said. "As soon as we heard about this, we reached out to the student and her parent," said Sabrina Aranda, Hayward Unified spokeswoman. School leaders met with the girl and her mother to ensure she feels safe and comfortable, Aranda said. Hayward schools have an anti-bullying program, with assemblies and workshops emphasizing that bullying of any kind, including because of religious beliefs and sexual orientation, is not tolerated. The district's anti-bullying specialist is working with the school principal to come up with a plan to address the boy's actions, Aranda said. The boy started bullying her in the third grade, the girl said. She reported it to teachers, and there was a meeting with her mother, but nothing changed. She stopped wearing a hijab in fourth grade, but decided this year to once again cover her hair. "I'm proudly wearing it now," she said. The girl is one of several Muslim students who have been bullied in California, according to CAIR. "There has been an unprecedented climate of hate toward Muslim students, and we're going to have get creative in preventing these kind of incidents from happening again," said Brice Hamack of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area. . "It's becoming a really scary environment for Muslim students in California," he said. [Mercury News]
A Muslim woman forced to leave DC Public Library because of her head scarf
March 24: A Muslim woman was forced to leave a branch of the DC Public Library because of her Islamic head scarf, or hijab, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reported today. A witness said that she was standing near a Muslim woman in the library on March 23 when a DC Public Library police officer threatened to handcuff the woman if she did not remove her hijab. contacted DC Public Library officials about the reported incident and today received an apology from the executive director of the library, along with assurance that people of all faiths and backgrounds are welcome in local libraries. "We thank the DC Public Library for its swift and appropriate handling of this incident and for restating its policy of inclusion for all District residents," said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. [CAIR]
Inclusive groups unite against anti-Muslim hate in Chicago
March 24: Several organizations throughout the North Shore and Chicagoland gathered in one of America’s most progressive cities last weekend to show solidarity with Muslims. More than 100 heard speeches and sounded off that anti-Muslim bigotry is unacceptable at Fountain Square in Evanston last Sunday. Groups that were part of the event came up with the following declaration during the rally: “Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim are enduring vitriolic, frightening levels of hate and violence throughout the country- being spit on, verbally harassed and abused, physically assaulted, and even shot. This hate and violence do not exist in a vacuum. It takes place in the context of ongoing and systemic Islamophobia and racism that are pervasive and deep within our society.” The undersigned organizations and the Chicagoland community publicly say: We stand against the many ways in which anti-Muslim and xenophobic hatred manifests itself, including hate speech and hate crimes; institutionalized racism and state-sanctioned violence; racial and religious profiling in all its forms; and prejudice that targets refugees and immigrants of all backgrounds.” Groups in Evanston Sunday were American Friends Service Committee - Chicago, American Muslims for Palestine - Chicago, Arab Jewish Partnership for Peace and Justice in the Middle East, Beth Emet, CAIR-Chicago, Center for Inclusivity, Chicago Area Peace Action, Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC), Curt's Café, First Congregational Church of Evanston, UCC, Forward Humanity, Freedom First International SCLC, GCE Lab School, Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, Jewish Voice for Peace - Chicago, Lake Street Church of Evanston, Latino Resources, Main Street Alliance, Midwest Young Artists Conservatory, The Musical Offering, Muslim Community Center, North Suburban Teachers Union, Open Communities, Peaceful Communities, People Encouraging Acceptance thru Communication & Education (PEACE), Public Interest Fundraising, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Roman Catholic Order of the Society of the Divine Word at Techny, Second Baptist Church, St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Tzedek Chicago, Unitarian Church of Evanston and YWCA Evanston/Northshore. [www.patch.com]
South Carolina paper publishes letter calling Islam 'Evil and the instrument of Satan'
March 24: South Carolina Morning News today published a letter calling Islam 'Evil and the Instrument of Satan.' Letter writer Mickey Dew said “Can we not see and understand that Islam is evil and the instrument of Satan? We cannot allow Muslims of the Islamic faith into this country because they cannot pledge allegiance to the flag, Constitution, or the laws of the United States.” He went on to say not one Muslim should be permitted a visa, much less an application for citizenship, without a disavowal of Islam and its evil ways. Islam is not a religion but rather the AntiChrist, AntiBuddhist, AntiJudaism, AntiAtheist, AntiHomosexual, intent on conquering the world, extinguishing all other forms of religion, and imposing Sharia (Islamic) law. Islam will continue to promote, in the name of God, further atrocities that would make Hitler and Stalin blush (maybe). Do not invite our own destruction by inviting the devil into our midst under the guise of Freedom of Religion. Aliens have no constitutional protections and should not be afforded any sans the pledge! [South Carolina Morning News]
Milwaukee Sheriff's support for Ted Cruz's Muslim 'patrols'
March 30, 2016: In an interview today on FOX Business Network, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke supported Cruz's call for patrolling Muslim neighborhoods and said: "We have to get over this notion that these [Muslim communities] are no-go zones." The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) expressed concern that over Wisconsin sheriff's public support for GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz's call for law enforcement to "patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods." The CAIR said it will lead to religious and ethnic profiling by officers. CAIR, along with many law enforcement and public officials, have condemned Cruz's recent policy recommendation as unworkable, unconstitutional and counterproductive. "By appearing to support Ted Cruz's unconstitutional and counterproductive recommendation to target law-abiding American Muslims, Sheriff Clarke sends the message to officers in his department that he would similarly approve of profiling members of his county's Islamic community," said CAIR Government Affairs Manager Robert McCaw. "The fact that Sheriff Clarke seems to buy into the debunked notion of Muslim 'no-go zones' in America is an indication that he is basing his views on anti-Muslim propaganda, not on hard data." [CAIR]
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