
          Hate in the News: Violence Against Arab Americans and Muslims
          
            Datcher, KelvinKelvin
	       Datcher, Southern Poverty Law Center
          
          Vol. 23, No. 3-4, 2001 pp. 8-9
          
          In the aftermath of the
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on
September 11, another form of terrorism emerged. This terrorism was
homegrown, and most often, Americans were attacking Americans. Within
hours-and long before any suspects had been identified-reports of
harassment and violence against Arab Americans and Muslims began to
pour in. Within days, the harassment and violence had escalated to
murder.
          The areas that saw the most violence during this
"backlash" were Michigan, California and New York, not coincidentally
the three states with the largest Arab populations. 
          The
American South did not escape the senselessness, however. There were
scattered reports in most states, but Florida, which has the largest
Arab American population in the region with about 50,000, saw the most
numerous and startling incidents.
          Among those acts, an Orlando
disc jockey blamed "ragheads" for the attacks on air, arrows and
bullets were fired into mosques, and Islamic schools and businesses
were closed due to bomb threats. The man accused of the first murder
during this wave of violence also has southern roots. Frank Roque,
whose alleged Arizona rampage includes shooting and killing one Sikh
man and shooting at a Lebanese-American and into the home of a Syrian
family, is a native Alabamian.
          The South's legacy of racial
strife has been rekindled anew, and this time it is not limited to
black and white. Following are a list of attacks of violence against
Arab Americans and Muslims in Southern states, provided by the
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
          -Kelvin
Datcher, Staff Writer, SPLC.
          Alabama
          A
Middle Eastern store clerk was beaten.
          An Indian medical
student's car was vandalized.
          Florida
          Someone attempted to run a Muslim woman in
Brooksville off the road.
          The pilot of a United Airlines
flight from Tampa to Cairo arbitrarily refused to allow an Egyptian
American to board.
          Police found a bullet embedded in the wall of
Hernando County's only mosque.
          An arrow was shot through the
front window and into a washing machine at a Muslim-owned laundromat
in Green Cove.
          The Islamic Center of Northeast Florida closed
its school for a week after a deluge of threatening phone calls. The
mosque is also paying for an off-duty police officer to conduct daily
patrols after someone drove a car onto the grounds and yelled curses
about Muslims and God.
          A Palestinian American in
St. Petersburg had his car vandalized with paint. A threatening note
was also left on the windshield.
          Three Jacksonville traffic
schools were closed after receiving bomb threats. The schools are
owned by Arab Americans.
          A family in Temple Terrace found
their garage door vandalized with the words "Muslims F***."
          Georgia
          Four men in the Atlanta area attempted to
stab a Sudanese man. They said, "You killed our people in New York. We
want to kill you tonight."
          Kentucky
          Two
Islamic meeting places were vandalized.
          A Lexington man posted
a sign in a neighborhood reading, "Arabs are Murderers." He refused to
remove the sign when his neighborhood association asked him. Two Arab
Americans live in the neighborhood.
          An Indian student was
attacked when he was mistaken for an Arab.
          Louisiana
          The Jefferson Parish public school
system in New Orleans closed down due to classmate taunts of Arab and
Muslim students.
          Tennessee
          Two Arab
American clinic workers received threatening phone calls. They were
told to "go home and get out of our country" and called "foreign
fags." Their daughter in Atlanta, Georgia, also received threatening
phone calls.
          Texas
          At least six bullets
shattered windows at the Islamic Center of Irving.
          
          In San
Antonio, a Delta Airlines pilot ejected an Arab businessman from his
first-class seat.
          A window at the Islamic Center of Carrollton
was broken by a slingshot-type device, according to police.
          A
San Antonio Iranian restaurant was vandalized.
          A professor of
Middle Eastern languages and cultures at the University of Texas was
spat on by a pedestrian.
          In Austin, an Arab American realtor
received anonymous telephone threats ordering him to "leave this
country or else!"
          At the University of Texas in Austin,
students wearing Islamic garb said their bags were searched by
university police before they were admitted to classrooms and they
were told to leave the student union because of "anti-Muslim
sentiment."
          In San Antonio, two Muslim girls were verbally
abused at their high school.
          A Pakistani Muslim storeowner in
Dallas was shot and killed. The FBI is investigating the shooting as a
bias-related crime. 
          Three bullets struck the Sahara Grocery
Market in San Antonio.
          A woman was sent home from work the day
after the attacks  following a meeting with her boss, who had singled
her out because of her Palestinian heritage. He stated he didn't know
if she would be celebrating the death of Americans in the
office.
          A Molotov cocktail was thrown against the side of the
Islamic Society of Denton, causing an estimated $2,500 in
damage.
          Virginia
          An Islamic bookstore
was vandalized in Old Town Alexandria.
          Two Virginia mosques
reported vandalism and threatening phone calls.
          A woman was
charged with threatening to bomb a mosque in Hampton.
          Washington, D.C.
          Rippy Singh was stopped by four
white men in a car who accused him of being a terrorist and who said
"we will bomb you."
          A Sikh was leaving work when he was
accosted by pedestrians who began to yell verbal expletives at
him. They threatened to "get" him and bomb him in retaliation for the
terrorist acts.
          At Dulles International Airport, a United
Airlines flight to London was delayed for four hours after a Saudi
pilot requested permission to fly in the cockpit jump seat, a courtesy
extended to pilots of all U.S. carriers before September 11. The
United pilot refused and returned to the gate where the Saudi pilot
and two other men were detained and questioned by the FBI and INS for
three hours before being released.
          The Islamic Center received
bomb threats, causing Massachusetts Avenue to be closed
off.
          Two women wearing traditional religious headdress where
spat upon as they rode a subway near the White House.
          
            Sources:
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (www.adc.org), the Council
on American-Islamic Relations (www.cair-net.org), the Asian Pacific
American Legal Center (www.apalc.org), police and wire reports. These
incidents and others from states beyond the South-as well as resources
for combating racial violence and discrimination-are posted on the
Southern Poverty Law Center's website:
www.tolerance.org.
          
        