SAALT's Materials and Tips for Responding to Xenophobic Rhetoric in Political Discourse

SAALT (South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow) has put together a document listing examples of racist rhetoric, aimed generally at South Asian, Muslim, and Sikh communities as a whole, or targeted specifically at South Asian candidates running for elected office since 9/11.

More after the fold

Examples include the following:

-On August 13th, 2006, Saqib Ali, who is running for a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates, was harassed by a man outside his home. The man sat outside Ali's home in Gaithersburg, MD, with a sign reading, "Islam Sucks," and a shirt with the slogan, "This mind is an Allah-free zone."

-John Cooksey (Republican congressman from Louisiana between 1997-2003) made the following comments shortly after September 11th which reflect religious and ethnic prejudice:"If I see someone (who) comes in that's got a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over."

- Tom Tancredo (R-CO)'s comments about immigrants have been welldocumented by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC's Intelligence Report includes the following examples:
o Tancredo's warnings that undocumented immigrants are "coming here to kill you and to kill me and our families."
o More recently, on a radio talk show, Tancredo suggested that the United States should "take out" Mecca and other Islamic holy sites if America is targeted in another attack launched by Muslims.

And then of course, there is Macacagate.

The report is available at their website, and includes tips for responding to such rhetoric (much of which is probably old hat for kossacks), in addition to a letter sent to Howard Dean, Mike Honda and Ken Mehlman (yeah, I know) asking them to respond to the prevalence of xenophobic rhetoric targeting these communities.

Please read and forward to any interested individuals.

UPDATE: And the stupidity just keeps on coming: Burns says terrorists drive taxis by day

•  Like your examples, but what about

  adding a few of the items from the document you are talking about? It would be interesting to see a couple so you could tell if you wanted to pursue reading more.

  Important topic, imho.

  by Gorette on Fri Sep 01, 2006 at 02:18:20 PM PDT

•  Thanks for your suggestion

  Thanks for your suggestion. I wasn't sure if this was copyrighted material or not, so I was wary of posting more than three paragraphs (as stated in the FAQ).
  The examples are all taken from the document, which is relatively brief, so please, by all means, read further if they interest you.

  Thanks for commenting.

  by lirtydies on Fri Sep 01, 2006 at 02:39:34 PM PDT