The Clipboard: U.S. sends Muslims mixed messages

From an article¹:

But days before the voter drive, news bubbled up that the Census Bureau had given special, tabulated population data on Arab Americans to the Department of Homeland Security.

The data included specific information on how many people of Arab backgrounds live in certain cities and ZIP codes, and it goes so far as to sort folks by country of origin.

Just how many potentially "evil" Syrians live in Rainier Valley? Or how many "inscrutable" Palestinians call lower Queen Anne home? And we can't ignore those "suspicious" Egyptians and Moroccans over in Ballard, right?

The government -- emboldened by the Patriot Act and color-coded madness -- is engaging in a troubling tally that risks stepping on the public trust. These actions also are an uneasy reminder of what happened during World War II, when U.S. officials took census data of Japanese Americans.

What began back then as simple number-taking ended with unjust internment camps. Have we learned nothing from the ugly history?

Four short years ago, the Census Bureau issued a long-overdue apology for allowing government data to be used to round up tens of thousands of Japanese Americans, who were interned. Here we are at the trailhead of a troubled path. Again. (link)

An excellent article all around. I especially like the line at the end about voting as a WMD - Weapon of Mass Democracy.

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Complete text of the article, U.S. sends Muslims mixed messages, by Robert L. Jamieson, Jr

What's a good Muslim American or Arab American to do when the country he or she loves, pays taxes in and would die for sends terribly mixed signals?

The U.S. government says it wants these decent Americans to get out and vote.

At the same time, Uncle Sam says we need to keep tabs on them and know where they live -- just in case they turn out to be terrorists.

So, are Muslim and Arab Americans with us -- as they've shown time and again -- or against us -- as recent government actions suggest they could be?

They say they're with the United States, as a matter of patriotism, if not always in agreement with the country's foreign or domestic policies.

Over the weekend, from Olympia to Lynnwood, local Muslims, including people of Arab heritage, exhibited red, white and blue fervor by taking part in a national campaign to get more people from those communities registered to vote.

That is a boost for democracy, which is about bringing more people under the big tent to participate in the political process and shape local and national policy.

But days before the voter drive, news bubbled up that the Census Bureau had given special, tabulated population data on Arab Americans to the Department of Homeland Security.

The data included specific information on how many people of Arab backgrounds live in certain cities and ZIP codes, and it goes so far as to sort folks by country of origin.

Just how many potentially "evil" Syrians live in Rainier Valley? Or how many "inscrutable" Palestinians call lower Queen Anne home? And we can't ignore those "suspicious" Egyptians and Moroccans over in Ballard, right?

The government -- emboldened by the Patriot Act and color-coded madness -- is engaging in a troubling tally that risks stepping on the public trust. These actions also are an uneasy reminder of what happened during World War II, when U.S. officials took census data of Japanese Americans.

What began back then as simple number-taking ended with unjust internment camps. Have we learned nothing from the ugly history?

Four short years ago, the Census Bureau issued a long-overdue apology for allowing government data to be used to round up tens of thousands of Japanese Americans, who were interned. Here we are at the trailhead of a troubled path. Again.

"We are required to provide information to other federal agencies," Hermann Habermann, deputy director of the Census Bureau, told The New York Times last week. "This is not a cabal calculating secret tabulations."

But he added: "We do worry about how information will be used. However, we have not been given the authority to determine which organization gets which information."

That ought to raise a warning flag, as should the federal government spokeswoman who says the data "is not in any way being used for law enforcement purposes."

Well, no -- not yet. But what if there is another attack on American soil involving al-Qaida? Then what?

Round up the usual suspects from the census -- Arab and Muslim Americans?

It may all sound far-fetched. Yet a strong predictor of future behavior is past behavior. The U.S. government, in the late 1980s, ended up deciding to dole out $20,000 reparations checks to more than 60,000 Japanese Americans for treating them like fenced-in animals.

This latest census issue has been met by a disturbing lack of public discussion. The reasons, I suspect, are not because fair-minded Americans are indifferent. Either they do not know about what is going on or they are so distracted by the government's drumbeat of potential terror strikes, including warnings issued the other day based on dusty data from more than three years ago -- before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The federal government, intentionally or not, uses scare tactics to fog us up. It keeps all Americans frightened about possible terror -- and overly suspicious of each other.

It scares Arab and Muslim Americans, in particular, by cataloging data on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, which is apparently too busy messing around with primary colors to crunch its own numbers.

Samia El-Moslimany, board chairwoman of the Seattle office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the census actions could have "a chilling effect" that works against getting more Muslims registered to vote. Who wants to voluntarily engage in a democratic system they perceive as working against them?

"But the bottom line is people need to get involved in the political process to impact things like this," El-Moslimany said of census data sharing. "To make this unacceptable. For too long, we have been sitting and whining. To be proactive, you have to be politically active."

May the census shenanigans serve as a powerful catalyst to bring new voters to the fold -- people who can join others in using the ballot as a WMD: weapon of mass democracy.

reference=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/184759_robert04.html