Group accuses 2016 Olympics Committee, Daley and Chicago Park District of discrimination, files suit

Chicago, IL - October 1, 2009

The Chicago Park District, The Chicago 2016 Olympic Committee, and Chicago Mayor Daley have demonstrated a pattern of racial discrimination in the development and design of their Olympic Bid," said Valencia Rias, who is a South Side community activist. 

As a result, Rias and eight other Chicagoans filed a civil rights Racial Discrimination complaint today with the U.S. Department of Justice, charging that:

Chicago's strategy for carrying out the Olympics (as stated in Chicago's Olympic bid) relies heavily on the "donation" of major Chicago parks for the clear majority of Olympic ceremonies and competitions, even though the Chicago version of the Games has been advertised as  "privately funded").

• Most important, three major public parks with the heaviest burden for the Games (especially Washington Park, but also including Douglas Park and Jackson Park) serve communities that are nearly 100% African-American and among the poorest in the city. These communities will be substantially deprived of the use of a significant poart of their parks for periods of two years or more, while major venues (such as the temporary 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium at Jackson Park) are constructed and then torn down after the Olympics.  

• These three parks are almost the only resource that many young people and adults have available in their communities for recreation (especially organized and informal sports that keep young people out of trouble, but also including jogging, and picnicking).  

• For example, Washington Park is a 98% African American 65% low-income community on Chicago's South Side. Washington Park will become the site not only of an 80,000-seat stadium, but also five swimming pools.  

• After being denied access to Washington Park for two years, residents will watch Olympic spectators arrive on shuttle buses, enter the stadium and pool sites through fences surrounding them, and then return to their hotels-once again by shuttle bus.

• Washington Park has virtually no full-service stores. They have no major restaurants or other businesses that are to attract people who come to watch the Olympics. The Chicago Olympic bid itself does not include concrete and substantial funds to help Washington Park and other venues with their the major economic development commitment needed to turn them around.

• The Rio bid makes the long-term development of the communities where the Olympics will be held central to their bid.  With no similar funds as part of Chicago's bid several Chicago foundations are establishing a fund to aid the communities where the Games would be held in Chicago.

• The three African American communities in which these parks are located had no say in whether or how their parks would be used for Olympic events.  The decision to "donate" their use to the Chicago Olympic Committee was made by the Chicago Park Board, which is appointed and totally controlled by Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley.  (The Mayor's former Chief of Staff, Gery Chico) is now the Park Board's President.)

• Of the more than 50 public parks larger than 100 acres in Chicago, only one park in a predominantly white community is being required by the Park District and the Mayor to bear a somewhat similar burden, by serving as the site for tennis, with some new courts to be built.

"I think the Chicago 2016 Olympic Committee has stolen parks in low-income African-American neighborhoods because they think we will just be quiet and take it- while white and more affluent neighborhoods wouldn't tolerate it," says Michael Johnson, an active parent who coaches a youth football team in Washington Park. 

A map of where the city's parks are located clearly indicates the Committee could have had set these different competitions up in a wide variety of communities that are still close to the Olympic Village," said Rias. 

"The Olympic Committee has talked about using parks that have breath-taking lakefront views, but only one of the three parks in the African American community is actually on the Lake Michigan.  Chicago has a real lakefront park that extends along nearly the entire lakefront on Chicago's North Side, but this park is in the wealthiest part of the city and would never tolerate extensive shutdowns and construction," said Toni Stith, another signer of the Department of Justice complaint.

Parents also question why a city that faces a record $500 million deficit for the coming fiscal year can shell out millions for the Olympics.  Due to both city and state budget deficits this year, many social service and health care workers were laid off.  "I would rather have a good teacher in my son's classroom than watch the Olympics through a fence," said Crystal Crokett, another parent who signed the federal complaint.

Michael Scott, Mayor Daley's appointed head of the Chicago Board of Education and a member of the committee seeking to bring the Olympics to Chicago, bet that real estate prices would go up around the Douglas Park Olympic venue on the West Side, when he bought run-down real estate near the park, where the Olympic bicycle-racing track will be built. When a journalist exposed Scott's activities, Scott dropped his ties to this land purchase.

Chicago's precarious financial position and the sense that insiders will be the primary beneficiaries, if the Olympics come to the Windy City, have helped contribute to a sharp drop in public support for the Chicago 2016 bid.  Last February, 67% of Chicagoans supported holding the Games here, according to the Chicago Tribune.  This percentage dropped to 47% in September, with 84% Chicagoans saying that no public money should be used to support the Games. The level of public support for the Olympics is one stated standard that the International Olympic Committee uses to judge competitors' bids.

"This percentage could sink even lower after lengthy Olympic construction forces families to curtail the use of parks in low-income African American communities, after these communities have been required to "donate" their parks for Olympic competitions in 2016." said Rias.

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Designs for Change

814 South Western Avenue
Chicago, IL 60612
www.designsforchange.org

Owners of apartment building complex accuse Oak Lawn village officials of racism and discrimination

The owners of three large apartment buildings in Oak Lawn off of 95th and Harlem Avenue accused the Village Manager of Oak Lawn, Larry Deetjen, of discriminatory practices and harassment. The owners charged at a public meeting of the Oak Lawn Village Board Tuesday Sept. 22, 2009, that the village began cracking down on them right after Deetjen became village manager. They said the issue was the  population of their buildings which are 40 percent Black, 20 percent Arab, 20 percent Hispanic and 20 percent White. Oak lawn is a predominantly White community and the apartment complex represents the heart of the suburban village's minority concentration.

Deetjen sat through the public session at the beginning of the board meeting without comment, but he was defended by Village Trustee Robert Streit who launched into a tirade against the two owners telling them that their tenants -- 84 families -- have drawn police calls 366 times over the last two years involving everything from drug abuse, domestic violence, gang fights and a long laundry list of crimes.

I was shocked to hear Streit's attack, mainly because:

1 -- the owners said the village was upset with them and cited them with numerous building code violations (that are not even listed on the village code books by the way) because the minority population has increased significantly at the buildings since they purchased them almost four years ago.

2 -- Streit did not address the alleged code violations which INVOLVE THE BUILDING but instead focused on the type of people who live in their buildings, outlining the alleged misconduct of the tenants (which the owners of the building have no control over) and saying people like that are unwanted in Oak Lawn.

Yikes!

I will have a story in next week's Southwest News-Herald column and will post a transcript of the verbal back-and-forth.

Streit also denounced the owners who live in Countryside as "absentee landlords" (does Streit do all of his business in Oak lawn or is he an absentee business owner?) And Streit denounced them for waiting 18 months to complain about the alleged verbal altercation that took place with Deetjen.

In an interview before the meeting, the owners said they were moved to come forward after reading about instances of racial discrimination against American Arab grocery store owner Naim Massad at 103rd and Central Avenue, whose store was harassed for two years by the village and was shut down including on July 15 when he was falsely accused of operating his store under a village order to be shut. It was falsely alleged that Massad had a sign on his window in Arabic that told Arab customers the store was closed and they should go to the back of the store to buy store items.

Massad was arrested -- not for the violation of the closing order but for allegedly putting food in an unsanitary vacant store next door -- and so was his wife and son. Massad accused the police who arrested him of denouncing his Arab heritage in vulgar terms.

Police have since reported that the evidence in the case, including the alleged sign in Arabic, was throw out and is no longer in police custody. Police took the sign as evidence but later discovered that the sign in Arabic only said that his store was "closed."

And during the dispatching of police to the store -- because of the Arabic sign and complaint -- the police officer told the dispatcher they were going to "shut down an Arab store owner."

I'll have more on the latest incident of discrimination in my next column in the Southwest News-Herald newspaper (www.SWNewsHerald.com.)

County Commissioner Deborah Sims hides behind racism to defend her worthless trackrecord

Cook County Commissioner Deborah Sims, the whining face of crybaby elected officials who rampage through taxpayer's rights to pad their own useless offices and do-nothing services wants to blame her "colleagues" for "fueling" a stupid, racist call that she received the other day on her county office telephone. Sims should apologize to the voters, taxpayers and to her two colleagues on the Cook County Board whom she viciously attacked, Larry Suffredin and Tony Peraica.

It was such a spectacle, a circus, really, as cameras and microphones were held up to the tiny speaker on the county phone as Sims played back the voice message left by some moron who ranted against her vote flip-flopping to allow the repressive 1 percent Todd Stroger Sales Tax to stand. It sounded like there was more classlessness than racism in the caller's voice as he spewed racist comments and foul words.

I bet no one ever heard of Sims until this moment when some racist moron decided to put her into the spotlight. Sims has done nothing but occupy a worthless seat on the Cook County Board since 1994 -- she's been on the county board for 15 years and no one can come up with one thing that she has ever done in office except fatten her campaign war chest and raise money.

Sims comes out of the Chicago Democratic Machine where she worked before she was handpicked by the Machine to "represent" the district. She served on the County "construction" committee, which gives her the ability to hit county contractors up for contracts. She raised $48,000 in the last half of 2008, an amazing amount of money when you consider her mediocre record and do-nothing career in office.

Her biggest sponsors is Wilson Frost, the former Chicago alderman.

There is no question in my mind that the call made to Sims' office was a set-up and I will put odds that this is an old Chicago machine Trick. When you want sympathy after running over an old lady trying to cross your street -- which is how I compare Sims' vote to sustain Stroger's veto of the sales tax rollback -- you break your own window. But in these days and times where everything is racism, a phone call from some hack -- twice to the same phone apparently -- is even better.

Just as they never find the culprit who threw the rock through the window of some Chicago alderman, they will probably never find the racist caller. He might actually be on the Machine's payroll just doing his job. And in the event that the call is real, blaming it on County Commissioners Tony Peraica and Larry Suffredin, who were on radio last week the night of the vote condemning her, is outrageous.

Sims should apologize immediately for that comment. In fact, her accusation against Peraica and Suffredin is even more outrageous than the racist call, if that call was even real and not a set-up.

Sims should take responsibility for her failed leadership as one of the most undistinguished officeholders in Cook County. She can't even defend her actions on a level playing field because there is no defense for her ignorant vote on the board. So she hides behind racism and blames a questionable racist call on two colleagues who rightly called her out.

Pathetic.

That phone call was probably the only time Deboarh Sims ever listened to the opinions of one of her constituents.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

Obama school address debate is driven by mix of politics and racism and demagoguery

Orland Park School District 135 is giving parents the option to remove their children from participating in a nationwide address that President Barack Obama will be making via the Internet and C-SPAN on Tuesday morning during class.

Obama wants to encourage children to "work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning" The President will also call on students, parents and educators to work together to ensure "every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens."

Right wing fanatics, conservative extremists and the demagogue himself, former Vice President and war criminal Dick Cheney says that the President's goals represent "socialism," you know, the kind that we Americans fought against during World War II and the Cold War and throughout Europe.

Cheney and his ilk say that doing good in school is "socialism?" What a moron. he should be charged with war crimes. The U.S. Attorney's office is slowly winding its way through the criminal actions taken before and during the illegal invasion of Iraq -- which distracted this country from the real enemy in Afghanistan and is forcing our soldiers to face stepped up terrorist threats there today because Bush and Cheney didn't commit enough forces to that country eight years ago.

I remember when Republicans used to say we have to respect Bush whether we like him or not because he is the President of the United States. It's the office and when the president acts, we need to stand by him as a nation. We did that, of course, and over the past five years, we've seen more than 4,000 American soldiers come home in body bags with no real progress against the war on terrorism in Iraq.

Now, of course, the president is a Democrat and an African American, and we are told that he is a "socialist" because he wants to encourage school students to do better in school and to help others to do better.

My son will be listening to President Obama's speech Tuesday. Proudly. I feel sorry for those students who parents will remove their children and don't seem to like a president because a) he's a Democrat, b) because he is Black or c) he wants all students to do well in school. Tragic but symptomatic of the challenge that we face in America where racism, hatred and extremism lingers on from the Bush administration.

The idea was promoted by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who was the Chicago Schools CEO before being appointed to the national post.

If you are interested, you can watch the speech live via the Internet at

http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/live Tuesday Sept. 8 at 11 AM CENTRAL Time.

I know many children and students will be watching because many of their parents care about improving education for ALL children, regardless of race, color, religion or national origin.

Of course, the debate reminds us that not all share that benefit for our nation.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

Those pimping for the U.S. Census should be honest, its about their money not our community empowerment

The U.S. Government has done a great job hiring Arabs in our community to shill for their cause, to continue to oppress our community. The focus on the effort is the U.S. Census.

I want you to notice something. Everyone one pimping and pushing for the American Arab community to "participate" in the U.S. Census are all PAID by the U.S. Government to tell us to fill out the census form.

They lie that filling out the census form and "writing in our race" Arab in the little line at the bottom of the form is a way for us to be empowered. And when someone questions their lies, they slam and slander Arabs who argue that we have been misled by lazy, do-nothing Arab activists who have taken the short and easy route to money instead of fighting the long term challenge.

What is the long term challenge? Arabs should be listed officially on the census.

Here is who are now listed on the U.S. Census:

The census form asks for your Race, listing Hispanic, Latino or Spanish Origin. And they ask if you are Mexican, Mexican American (I didn’t know there were two categories of Mexicans), or Chicano? What kind of race is “Chicano?” What country do “Chicanos” come from? “Chicano-stan?”

They ask the same question again on the long form: Are you White? Black, African American or Negro? Are you American Indian or Alaskan Native and they even give you a place to write in your tribe name.

That’s not all. The form asks are you Asian Indian? Japanese, Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Korean, Guamanian or Chamorro, Filipino, Vietnamese, Samoan or Other Asian where they give you a space so you can print your “race” like Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian “and so on.”

Oh, they don’t stop there. They ask are you “Pacific Islander” and ask you to print your race like Fijian, Tongan “and so on.”

Way at the bottom, in case they missed someone, someone not so important, they have the throw away line, to check here if you are “Some Other Race – Print Race.”

That is where I have to hand-write that I am “Arab.” And proud of it too, by the way.

Read the full original column that has Rashad al-Dabbagh, who works for the census, and some members of the Arab American Institute targeting me because I don't agree with their laid-back lack of activism against this problem. Click here to read the column?

The fact is that while these activists are cashing their checks and telling American Arabs, "Don't worry. You don't have to be listed on the census form, you can write it in so the AAI can complete their list," government agencies across America are discriminating against American Arabs specifically and directly because the U.S. Census DOES NOT list Arabs as "Arab" on the Census form.

The federal government requires police officers who pull people over for traffic stops to list the race of the person being stopped. But, they are required only to list those races AND ethnicities listed on the U.S. Census form.

Why is that important? If the race is listed on statistics, communities can easily see if they are being targeted for discrimination by police officers and then use that as "EMPOWERMENT" to demand that the police department hire American Arabs.

But American Arabs are NOT listed and police are not required to list us at all.

In every instance of EMPOWERMENT, not being listed on the U.S. Census means we are denied the ability to confront and stop discrimination, discrimination that is holding our community back.

And all that the activists who are PAID by the U.S. Census can do is attack me ands my argument and tell us little American Arab Sheep to "write your race on the form."

Well, writing your name on the form does not stop the discrimination and it DOES NOT force government agencies from the top of the Federal Government to the bottom of the local suburban government to recognize the rights of Americans Arabs.

When we ask school districts how many Arabs have they hired, the answer is "We are not required to list employees based on the race 'Arabs' and we only list race and ethnicity based on those identified in the U.S. Census."

I know what the problem is. It's easier for some in our community to take the handout from the government and keep the American Arabs in a stupor than to find the courage to stand up and change a system that needs to be change.

Arabs should and MUST be listed on the U.S. Census form and until we are, we will continue to be discriminated against, denied government grants, denied government jobs and marginalized in our society.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

Saga of Oak Lawn grocer targeted for racism grows

An Oak Lawn Grocer alleges he was targeted for racism by a village inspector. The issue involves a two-year long battle between the inspector and the grocer. But it crossed the line when on July 15, the grocer, Naim Massad, and his wife Suzanne and his son Abed, were arrested during a surprise inspection brought on by a call to the village by a neighboring store owner, Pat Bartell who owns the music store just north of Massad's Grocery.

(Bartell is listed in the police report as having made the initial complaint and she is quoted on FOX TV and also now in the Southtown as complaining about Massad's store).

Here are links to my stories so far. And I mean so far because this story continues to get worse as you dig into the allegations from the inspector, Jeanne Foody Galzin, which seem exaggerated to say the least.

Click to read the news story on the arrest?

Click to read the column I wrote on the arrest?

Click to read the Daily Southtown Story on the arrest?

What's interesting is the role of the music store owner in all this. Her attorney Pat Sullivan insists she is not anti-Arab or harboring any racist feelings. But in talking to him, he says her store was "damaged" by sanitation problems in Massad's store.

The problem with that is that the Village DID NOT CLOSE Bartell's music store. She closed it on her own. And the problem, Bartell's attorney says, involves sewage, but there is no direct link to Massad's store. Rather than look at the possibility that the building is a problem, Bartell has been pointing a finger of blame directly at Massad, I think unfairly. You can read the note she posted on her door when she closed her own store in my news story above.

It's very possible that water is leaking fromt he roof or someplace into Bartell's store. Why blame him?

Sullivan said there was a "stink" coming from somewhere -- they say Massad's store.

That might be. Massad's store was closed on July 15 by the village and locked up for almost two weeks by the village without access. In fact, Galzin, the village inspector has been showing the media pictures of rotted and outdated food products that Massad says were taken AFTER he was arrested and the village bolted his store shut. he couldn't get in to his store until the village opened it last week, only after I started to ask questions.

And the ridiculous accusation that Massad stored food in an unsanitary condition is really outrageous. I looked at the facts. Here is what I found.

The vacant store is clean and was clean there never were "pots of sewage" stored in that store which is the basis of the complaint.

Nothing was being stored in EXCEPT old clothing that Palestinians have been collecting over the past few months so they can ship them to help the Palestinian refugees living in the Gaza Strip. (Is that a problem I wonder? You say "Gaza" and many uneducated Americans start thinking, Hamas, terrorism, al-Qaeda ... really dumb stereotypes and racist feelings come out with that.)

The delivery truck arrived minutes before the inspector arrived with four police squad cars, called by the music store owner.

The delivery man was unloading the pallets of food when Galzin arrived and insisted that the music store owner said he was operating his business when in fact he was not. When Massad said that was not true, he told the delivery man to put the food in the vacant store -- which was open because the night before the village busted the door down and the windows (now boarded up), Galzin got upset and charged Massad with putting the food in the vacant store and had him arrested on that charge.

The village now claims, falsely, that Massad was arrested (according to the Daily Southtown Story) for:

"repeated and flagrant violation of food safety," according to the July 15 inspection report.

That contradicts the charges in the police report:

Click to read the police report that was filed by Galzin and updated 8 days later after I began asking questions. Even in the update, the arrest report does not make that exaggerated charge.

“At Jeanne Galzin’s request,” the police report details, Massad was handcuffed and charged with the crime of “storing food in an unsanitary condition.”

Is it possible that the "smell" that Martell is talking about which prompted her to close her store before the arrest and just before my story broke August 5, 2009 came from the food being locked in the store by the village between July 15 and July 31 when the store was finally re-opened?

If that's the case, then maybe someone should give the Village of Oak Lawn a citation for violating sanitation conditions because they locked the store and Massad and his family could not enter the store.

In my opinion, a lot of the lies promoted in this story against the Massad family are driven by racism and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment. I can't find any other explanation for it, and the exaggerated claim of sanitation problems blamed on Massad clearly suggest something more.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

Hate crime declared in racist attack in Orland Park

Despite the local media's "Happy Talk" spin, thinsg are not so happy in Orland Park.

Read this story about the hate crime attack at Wenday's Restaurant on 145th and LaGrange Road.

How significant is race in America -- we'll find out Tuesday

When I was a kid growing up on the Southeast Side of Chicago, race was a major issue. It was tough enough being Arab, dark skinned (olive) living in an all-White mainly eastern European community. We lived in a little pocket of serenity in that environment, Arabs, Jews, all clustered together in South Shore Valley nestled between Pill Hill, Jeffrey Manor and South Shore.

but in 1968, the world changed when realtors brought in a Black Family that rented a home from a white family. They had a daughter who was mentally challenged and the girl would walk through the neighborhood. It was almost as if the realtors planned to frighten and antagonize the racial divide and they did, to their profit.

Within six months, most of the White Families moved out of the Southeast Side enclave, selling their homes at lightening speed for costs far below market value. And the Realtors turned the fast sales into their own profits, selling to Black Families.

They told Whites, "The Black people are coming." They told Blacks, "You can have the American dream just like White people."

In the end, it was a time of great consternation, too. JFK had been assassinated, a few years earlier and in 1968 RFK and King were murdered, too. Tensions were high.

Since then, we have come to live with each other in a balance of tolerance. We don't hate each other any more -- at least we don't fret about it any more. If we do hate Blacks or Blacks hate Whites, no one openly admits it except for the fringe extremists in both communities. We work together. We even live together, to some degree far more than we used to, but not nearly enough. It's not a melting pot. It's a patchwork of some spots in the fabric of American life.

We sit at restaurants together, live in the same neighborhoods, go to the same movie theaters, and patronize the same shopping centers.

But there is a cultural divide. We have diffierent cultures and societal mannerisms. Neither is better or worse, just different. And we don't really socialize together. We don't really come together and enjoy each others lives. We acknowledge each other. Tolerate each other, but tolerate as long as you don't marry my daughter syndrome. Black. White. We're all the same.

Tuesday will be the big test. Can White America elect a Black President? The polls say yes, but the polls reflect the first layer of tolerance where we patronize the same areas of life, but we really don't share or socialize. We are in the same vicinity but not the same mind set.

If Obama loses, people will say it is because of race. White Americans will go into the polls telling pollsters they will support a Black Man, but inside, vote their fears.

Oprah Winfrey doesn't help. Oprah doesn't really like mainstream White People although she has done a great job of exploiting the problems in White America. She hasn't helped. She's hurt us. She isn't an American. She is a Black American. And until Oprah becomes an American, no longer Black,a nd until Whites become Americans, no longer White, we can't really achieve that level of coexistence that goes beyond simply walking past each other at a shopping Mall.

We'll see Tuesday if Whites and Blacks int he shopping mall of life actually stop and start talking to each other.

Or, whether they walk past each other, acknowledge each other, but go on their individual cultural ways.

-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com

PS ... I published a book online about my experiences in the great White Flight of 1968 on Chicago's Southeast Side. It will never make Oprah's Book Club and it would be showcased by Mayor Daley either. But you can go to my web site and then click on the book section and read it. It's called Midnight Flight ... we went to sleep saying good night to our White neighbors and woke up shocked to see they left, replaced by new, Black faces who became our neighbors for a short period of time, until the rest of us fled, too.

Hypocrisy in handling of Muslim versus Christian hoaxers

Dueling hoaxes expose more than youthful lies in bonfire of the bigotries
By Ray Hanania

The incidents happened weeks apart, a young Christian girl in Palos Heights, a community notorious for anti-Arab hatred and racism, told police that she had been sexually assaulted by an man she described as “Arab looking.”

Police developed a sketch of the suspect and the community response was immediate. The sketch was posted on nearly every store window not just in Palos Heights, but throughout the Southwest Suburbs across a 15 mile span that happened to correspond with the regional settlement of Arabs.

Although widely reported, the story even made America’s Most Wanted and host John Walsh repeated the description of the assailant being “creepy” looking.

Several weeks later, a Muslim girl reports she is assaulted at Elmhurst College. The news media covered the event and Muslim organizations stood up denouncing the attack as an example of rising anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate crimes.

In contrast, there wasn’t a peep from Arab American groups as they are ineffective and dysfunctional. And, America’s Most Wanted, which always seems to highlight cases where the victims are White and the Assailants are Black and “creepy” looking Arabs, didn’t bother to even give the incident 15 seconds on their popular national weekend TV program.

Safia Jilani, 19, told Elmhurst Police that she was attacked in the bathroom at the Southwestern suburban college and the incident was declared a “hate crime” when police found threatening graffiti written on the bathroom’s mirrors and walls.

Just about the time of the Muslim attack, the family of the Christian assault victim hired an attorney and the attorney announced his client had lied to police and that no such sexual attack had taken place.

The attorney expressed genuine remorse from the family, apologizing to the public, the police and later to “ethnic groups” who felt targeted, a reference to the Arab American profile of the hoax. Police said they would not prosecute, although the investigation into the crime cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The girl has agreed to do community service.

But when Jilani’s hoax was discovered, after she admitted to police that she had made up the attack details, police immediately announced they would file charges against her. She is charged with a Class 4 Felony and can face up to 4 years imprisonment.

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) which helped lead calls to declare the event a Hate Crime, responsibly and immediately issued a statement saying that false reports like Jilani’s undermine efforts to fight the many other, frequent incidents of discrimination that do occur.

Hate groups immediately flooded the Internet with statements denouncing Muslims as anti-American and citing the Jilani case as evidence that claims of discrimination are false.

Arab groups remained silent, reinforcing their view that doing nothing is oftentimes the best course of action.

What caused these students to do what they did?

In the case of the young Palos Heights girl, who is under-aged and her identity is therefore not made public, she was afraid to tell her parents about something she had done. The sexual assault would help her cover that up.

In the case of Jilani, earlier before she made up her lies, there was a clash between rightwing conservatives on the campus and students, including many Arabs and Muslims, who were protesting the abuse and violation of the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo, a detention center many compare to a concentration camp and a Russian Gulag. Many of the prisoners there are victims of politics and have never been charged with any crime, other than being Arab or Muslim.

Tensions were high at Elmhurst College but college officials acted responsibly to address the issues. Tensions were also high at Palos Heights but officials there have notoriously refused to address the rising incidents of hatred that have given the community the shameful moniker, “Palos Hates.”

Palos Heights was the site of the 2000 community protest to prevent their Muslim neighbors from establish a Mosque where they could pray. Palos Heights has two dozen Christian Churches, and no Synagogue.

While both girls are responsible for their lies, they are also victims of societies that put ethnic and religious faces on crimes. It’s not enough to capture a criminal. The suspects are used to argue racial issues that dominate American society and politics.

But there is one thing very clear.

When a Christian girl, who is White, cries wolf and it turns out she is lying, society is more willing to excuse her actions and not punish her with imprisonment of fines.

When a Muslim or Arab girl cries wolf and it turns out she is lying, the bonfires of bigotries and racism are ignited.

Although most of the police sketches of the phony “creepy” Arab assailant have been taken down from store windows, the mental sketches of hatred remain seared into the racism of a community disabled by hate.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist and Chicago radio talk show host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com or by email at rayhanania@comcast.net.)

Anti-Arab racism continues to plague southwest Chicago suburbs

It has been nearly a decade since residents of Palos Heights sullied their community by rising in protest against their neighbors who happened to be Muslim who sought to open a Mosque where they could observe their religion.

The move pushed nearly 2,000 people to sign a petition protesting the mosque plans, and sparked a high profile public battle led by some members of the Palos Heights City Council.

A few years later, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 700 residents of Orland Park tried but failed to prevent Muslims from doing the same there, claiming that building a Mosque for the region’s Arabs who bring Osama Bin Laden’s terrorism to the suburb.

Although both incidents have faded from public view, the anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hatred that sparked the incidents of community racism has not dissipated at all. There have been many less publicized incidents.

So it was not surprising when on Sept. 16, 2008, a 17-year-old girl working a late night shift at T.J. Grinders in Palos Heights on Harlem Avenue claimed she had been sexually assaulted by a man who looked “Arab” or “Indian.”

According to police, the girl had sent a text message to a friend saying a strange man who looked “creepy” had been ogling her through the sandwich shop’s window before coming in an ordering a sandwich.

Two hours later when she was alone and closing the store, the “creepy man” put a knife to her neck, ordered her into the back seat of his black car, and threatened to kill her if she made a sound. He drove around for 20 minutes and then took her to the forest preserves where he sexually assaulted her.

After the 30 minute assault, she said he drove her within blocks of her home and dropped her off in her t-shirt and underwear.

The police drawing of the suspect, based on the young girl’s description, clearly described a man who looked Middle Eastern. It was a horrible thing to see for Arabs and Muslims in the area as the flyer was distributed everywhere, from Palo Heights to Burbank and to Orland Park, communities with large Arab American populations.

The story immediately became a major report on the weekly FOX News Crime program “America’s Most Wanted,” a program that has done so much good to capture criminals and make the public aware of crime. But you could sense the animosity reflected in the tone of the words of the host, John Walsh when he spoke about the “vicious sexual assault” and the “disturbed sexual predator.” The report noted repeatedly that the suspect was “Arab” or “Indian.”

And it repeated the claim by the victim that the alleged suspect “emitted some minor but offensive body odor,” according to America’s Most Wanted.

Over the past few weeks, emails have been circulating through the Internet about those “Arab animals” and “Muslim monsters” who live in Palos Heights, Orland Park, Burbank and elsewhere.

The Southwest suburbs have a large concentration of Arab Americans. Although they are mostly Christian, the Muslims whose women wear Hijabs of head coverings, stand out making them more obvious targets of the growing hatred.

This week, Palos Heights police announced they were closing their investigation into the alleged sexual assault. The girl’s attorney, Martin A. Dolan, issued a statement that apologized to the “Southwest suburban community” for “the unnecessary concern and the time and effort from everyone involved.”

Dolan’s statement continued, "At this time, we assure you our community is safe and always has been... we ask you to continue your prayers for the family and avoid criticism or anger as they move forward and cope."

It must be terrible to be the parents of a young child that is disturbed enough to make up such a story. I wonder how people in the Southwest Suburbs feel about a child who found it so easy to point a finger of blame against an “Arab” or an “Indian.”

I wonder how many of the people who sent the hate emails around warning about the vicious Arab rapist who was wandering our community from Burbank, to Palos Heights to Orland Park still believe this?

Dolan said he did address the issue of the racism and the family specifically apologized to the specific ethnic groups that were mentioned. This was the action of a young, immature girl and she did not intentionally try to single out Arabs and Indians, he said. “But I think maybe it might be a wider problem and I can appreciate it for sure," Dolan said.

But, I wonder how long it will be before all of the phony police sketches of the “Arab” or “Indian” suspect will be removed.

It probably will happen faster than many people in the Southwest suburbs will be able to cleanse their hearts of the racism that helped make this tragic young girl’s lies so believable.

-- Ray Hanania

That Don Imus, what a putz

Don Imus is insufferable. What a racist bigot. They cut him slack every time, firing him for racist remarks and then rehiring him. That would never happen to someone of color. But in New York at Citadel Broadcasting, where racism abounds (just listen to Sean Hannity sometime) it's very disturbing.

Read story?

It is the same old Don Imus garbage, a trash talking jerk who slams everyone and then whines when he gets slamed. "Oh come on" was Imus' response.

You're not going to fire Imus this time? Oh come on!

Ray Hanania
www.TheMediaOasis.com

Being attacked by CAIR member for denouncing Hamas as a terrorist organization -- again

It's not unusual for an extremist to attack my views. I'm a Christian Arab who has frequently denounced Hamas as a terrorist organization, and they don't like that. Although there are many good people working and volunteering at CAIR, I was surpsrised to see an attack against me from someone who works at CAIR and who signed the attack with CAIR's name. The writer was responding to a column I wrote on the need not to give up on peace in the face of terrorism from Hamas and violence from Israel's government:

"I was surprised to read in the column by Ray Hanania, "Don't let violence
sabotage efforts toward peace," that Christians, Muslims and Jews have "never
lived together in peace."

"I'm sure that most of your readers, and probably the author too, can
attest to the fact that this is not true. I can appreciate the theme of the
column. But, as it reads, that one inaccurate statement defeats the entire
purpose.

"I expect more from the Daily Herald than to allow such naïve
generalizations to be printed. A little in-depth reporting might have shown that
peace between Christians, Muslims and Jews is not a high-minded ideal, but a
process that is going on right now in our city, as well as all over the world.
The hundreds of thousands of Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the Chicago area
are a daily living testament to this.
Luke Willson,
Communication Intern CAIR-Chicago

Of course, Luke Willson did not read the column, otherwise he would have noted that my comment "Christians, Muslims and Jews have never lived in peace" is a direct reference to the conflict in Palestine before 1948, and not a statement, as he implies so wrongly, that it is about Christian, Muslim and Jewish relations in general.

Here is the link to the column:
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=149426

Here is the exact quote from the column, that Willson distorts, intentionally I suspect:

"Extremist Palestinians like Hamas, and extremist Israelis like the settlers and
other groups in between, all want the entire land of Israel and Palestine for
themselves. Palestinian extremists do not want to acknowledge Israel's right to
exist because they believe in the so-called "one-state solution" which would
revert the land to its pre-1948 days when Christians, Muslims and Jews
presumably lived together in peace. Of course, they are delusional because
Christians, Muslims and Jews have never lived together in peace."

Willson takes the quote out of context to make his unfair attack, which is intended, of course, to intimidate the Daily Herald to drop a Christian Arab journalist from writing a column and replacing him with a Muslim American columnist, preferably one that implies he has the stamp of approval from CAIR.

The conflict in Palestine began long before 1948 and Christians, Muslims and Jews have not lived in peace at all. Right after the end of World War I and the British Mandate began, Christians, Muslims and Jews began fighting in Palestine, culminating in riots against Jewish immigration by Muslims and Christians in the 1920s ... but before that, the Muslim Ottoman Empire persecuted Christians and Jews living in their domains for hundreds of years in Palestine, killing those that refused to live as "subjected peoples." Meaning, they live in the Ottoman Empire as "guests," not as equal citizens. It was a common habit of the Ottoman's to take the children of Christians and Jews and force them to serve in a special military force created.

But I think Mr. Willson's comments have more to do with my constant hammering of Hamas as a terrorist organization, which Muslims rarely denounce -- a failing that exposes the writer's hypocrisy.

The attack comes from an intern at the CAIR Chicago office in the "communications department" -- a Cair official said that the views don't represent the organization. But, CAIR rarely writes letters supporting my views, and that only reinforces my argument about poor relations, at least between Christian Arabs and some Muslims.

People like Willson should spend more time practicing what they preach. Normally the group would censure the remarks like these by others, but from one of its "interns" who not only expressed a personal view but did so using the name of the organization itself in his signature? We'll see.

Ray Hanania
http://www.radiochicagoland.com/

Did Rev. Wright go too far and was he just addressing issues many Americans believe but are afraid to say openly?

Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. has come under attack for expressing his views on a wide range of issues. Some sensitive, some not. His comments have sparked attacks against him and his associates from rightwing hatemongers in America like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.

He is being ostracized. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, who is a member of his church, Trinity United CHurch of Christ on east 95th Street, has been forced to renounce him because of pressure from the news media and hate-driven fanatics in the media and in American politics.

The topic will be one of those addressed on Tuesday's radio show (4 to 6 PM, WCEV 1450 AM Radio) on www.RadioChicagoland.com. If you are not in the Chicago area, you can listen to the show as it is broadcast at www.WCEV1450.com.

Here is a statement from Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright's Jr., web page:

Thank you for your interest in Trinity United Church of Christ and for your consideration of our member, Sen. Barack Obama, in the Democratic primary election. Due to the high volume of emails and inquiries, we are unable to respond to each one personally. We were overwhelmed with “hits” after Senator Obama’s historic victory in the Iowa democratic caucus.

Barack Obama has been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ for nearly two decades. As a young community organizer, new to Chicago, Barack met with Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Trinity’s Senior Pastor, seeking advice. He received good counsel about the complexities of life in Chicago and the challenges faced by residents in poor communities like South Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens.

The United Church of Christ (http://www.ucc.org), Trinity’s denominational affiliation, is “a community of faith that seeks to respond to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed.” It was founded in 1957 through the union of several different Christian traditions. Not only does Trinity not exclude anyone from membership or attendance based on race or ethnicity, but:

The majority of UCC members are white; the conference minister of the Illinois Conference of the UCC (Rev. Jane Fisler Hoffman) and her husband (both white) are members of Trinity (You can watch a video of Rev. Hoffman speaking at Trinity about her positive experiences there.);
Trinity has been instrumental in working with and lending financial and staff support to the development of new UCC churches in Gary, IN (with the Indiana-Kentucky Conference of the UCC, Milwaukee, WI (with the Wisconsin Conference of the UCC), and Benton Harbor, MI (with the Michigan Conference of the UCC). There is no anti-American sentiment in the theology or the practice of Trinity United Church of Christ. To be sure, there is prophetic preaching against oppression, racism and other evils that would deny the American ideal. Trinity is “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian.”

Trinity was founded in 1961 and had 87 families when Dr. Wright started his tenure in 1972. Currently, as Dr. Wright anticipates a 2008 retirement, there are more than 8,000 members, 70 ministries, and three Sunday worship services. You and your family can watch these services online at 7:30am, 11:00am and 6:00pm CST.

If you require additional information, please do not hesitate to contact Senator Obama's office:
Devorah Adler at dadler@barackobama.com Joshua DuBois at jdubois@barackobama.com Yours in Christ!

Moved my books from CafePress.com to Lulu.com

For a long time, CafePress.com was a great place for independent authors to publish but recently, the web site has been showing some disturbing trends that seem to be based on racism, targeting Arab and Muslim Americans. For the past four months, all of my books have been in limbo, and unable to be updated. They kept insisting that it was a "bug" but after three months, it was clear the only bug was the bug up their asses about my book topics.

So, I have closed the CafePress.com shops and am migrating to a new site called Lulu.com. Lulu is more sophisticated but charges more than CafePress.com. And I am sorry that part of the increase in costs have to be passed along to buyers of my books. Still, because of the discrimination that exists in the New York Book Publishing industry against Arabs and Muslims, I've had to turn to the more effective online print-on-demand publishing system.

The new Lulu books will be available through Borders, Amazon and more. The links have been updated to reflect the new purchases resources. You can purchase my most popular books: I'm Glad I Look Like a Terrorist: Growing Up Arab in America, my memoir on the humorous and serious side of ethnicity in America, the popular Arab American Media & Leadership Directory for 2008 which is the only resource offering detailed contact information for Arab American and Muslim American news media, activists, organizations, web news sites, TV and radio, and of course the very successful Arabs of Chicagoland from Arcadia Publishing can be purchased directly from Arcadia Publishing or from any major book store.

Thanks for your patience as I make this transition for the six other remaining books.

-- Ray Hanania