Arab Americans in search of the mighty stream, Alia Malek

Opinion, August 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Arab Americans in search of the mighty stream

Alia Malek

The Daily Star, 8/30/03

Forty years ago on Thursday, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington. That moment has come to represent for many in America the culmination of the civil rights movement.
The effect of King’s speech, which imagined a nation that judged its citizens not “by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” was palpable. In the following years, the US Congress passed the federal civil rights laws outlawing segregation and discrimination on the grounds of race, color, national origin, sex and, in some cases, religion, in accommodation, housing, employment, voting, education and federally funded programs.
In the years since the civil rights movement, immigration has changed America’s racial makeup, and these laws, originally drafted to protect African-Americans, have been invoked on behalf of new communities, including Arab-Americans. In this post-Sept. 11, 2001 period, when Arab-Americans’ rights have come under particular attack, it is worth examining the evolution of civil rights in the US as it relates to both Arab-Americans and other minority groups. If we can learn to look at the Arab-American experience in the context of a country where one of the world’s greatest civil rights traditions coexists with an equally powerful tradition of racial intolerance, we can begin to draw comfort, lessons and strategies for vindicating those rights to which, as King said that day, “every American was to fall heir.”
Similarly, if Arabs and their governments want to understand and effectively interact with America, they must learn the domestic narrative of American history, as opposed to focusing on US foreign policy; and not just the dominant one told from the view of the founding fathers and frontiersmen, but the narrative of minorities in America, most importantly that of African-Americans.
Before Sept. 11, many Arab-Americans believed America’s racial problems did not implicate them. Race, they thought, was a matter of blacks and whites. The conflict between these two groups was, after all, the dominant paradigm in America’s racial history. And in a society where being white brought the privileges associated with being the racial majority, and being black brought discrimination and subordination, Arab immigrants naturally identified with white Americans.
This process was easier for early generations of Arab immigrants, mainly Syrian and Lebanese Christians who began arriving in the late 19th century. After a generation, their accent was gone, their names were Anglicized and the “right” holidays were celebrated. Where Arab-Americans did retain some sort of ethnic identity, they expressed it, for the most part, culturally and gastronomically (hummus at Thanksgiving), as opposed to politically.
In contrast, Arab immigrants arriving in the US today are increasingly Muslim, and hail from a wider array of countries. The racial paradigm in the US has shifted, and one can be an “other,” or not white, without being black. Americans now recognize “brown” Hispanics, “yellow” Asian-Americans and “olive” Arab-Americans.
Geopolitical flare-ups such as the Arab oil boycott of 1973 and the 1991 Gulf War did create an occasional backlash against Arab-Americans. Still, discrimination like racial profiling at airports or the use of secret evidence in deportation hearings was rare until Sept. 11, when the American government began to institute them as policies on a large scale. As a result, it became impossible for Arab-Americans to maintain the dam they had built between themselves and the immense forces of racism and racial inequality in America.
This was a shock to many Arab-Americans and Arabs in America. They began feeling that what was happening to them us was new and unique. This sentiment, however, was off target and is hampering effective advocacy in the US. The first thing to realize is that there is nothing unique in US overreaction to perceived or actual national security threats, and the subsequent assignment of collective guilt to ethnic or racial groups. The most chilling precedent was the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
Similarly, in the aftermath of Sept. 11 there were two different tracks pursued by the US government, specifically the many bodies of the Justice Department the Civil Rights Division, the FBI, and the immigration service (which has since become part of the Department of Homeland Security). At the very least these two tracks left Arab-Americans confused. First, there was a concerted effort by the Bush administration to pre-empt and punish hate crimes and discrimination. The Justice Department encouraged Arab-Americans to report hate crimes to the FBI and discrimination to the Civil Rights Division.
At the same time, however, legislation and policy as part of the “war on terrorism” subjected Arab-Americans to treatment that arguably violated their rights. The policy, it seemed, was “one hand giveth, the other taketh away.” This duality contributed to a feeling that treatment of Arab-Americans at the hands of the US government specifically the Justice Department was unique.
In fact, government schizophrenia on civil liberties was a hallmark of the civil rights era. So, while the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division pursued desegregation in over 600 school districts, protecting the right of African-Americans to vote and safeguarding against discrimination in employment and housing, the FBI was conducting surveillance of King and other civil rights leaders, trying to destabilize the movement.
The harsh awakening brought by Sept. 11, however, provided a tremendous opportunity. Before the attacks, Arab-American groups rarely engaged in coalition-building. Many did not grasp the importance of this, seeing themselves as part of privileged America systemic attacks on their civil rights and liberties were regarded as aberrations that would work themselves out. We were after all, not black.
While it is reassuring now to see Arab-Americans represented at other groups’ demonstrations and rallies, our understanding of civil rights and the pursuit of justice must extend beyond merely mobilizing for ourselves. We must have a broader vision of ourselves as hyphenated Americans. We must recognize our victimization as a consistent part of American history, and use it to speak up for an America free of any victimization based on race, national origin, sex or religion.
When the Arab-American community’s time in the hot seat passes, it should not abandon its vigilance and advocacy. This means its political vision must be broader than merely satisfying personal economic interests or advocating specific international agendas as Arab-Americans or Arabs.
Our victimization should open our eyes to how things work in America, and Arab-Americans should speak up when others are made to suffer, as we have in the past two years. America is changing, and it is increasingly a place of hyphenated Americans who, voluntarily or not, retain their racial and ethnic identities. Solidarity means we can share our burdens rather than shoulder them alone, a strategy far more effective than what exists now.
As King said 40 years ago: “We cannot walk alone … We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?’ … We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Alia Malek is a human rights attorney and one of the first Arab-Americans to serve in the US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. She wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).