I Love Arabs, I Love Jews

by Polly Mann, WAMM

All the flags -- from the miniature lapel-pin variety to the gigantic ones on Perkins flagpoles -- remind us that our country is at war and the political environment is extremely volatile.

Therefore, words -- written or pronounced -- carry added importance. There is some evidence that the recent death of a Somali Minneapolis resident could be attributed to hostility incurred by a newspaper article stating that Somalis were responsible for funds reaching terrorist organizations.

A lack of clarity can be dangerous. For example, a columnist for the Orange County weekly newspaper in an article entitled "The Arab Who Lives Down the Street," warns readers that when Arabs do not wear turbans they are trying to hide "the fact that they wear turbans because that's what your Arab is: a sneak." The column is so outrageous that a claim could be made that it is satire.

"Now, we're not saying they don't have a right to be here; all we're saying is if they have a right to be here, then we have the right to watch them and maybe hand out a beating every now and then just to keep 'em honest." Whether the piece is satire or not becomes almost irrelevant. The doubt, alone, makes it a danger to the safety of Arabs and other Middle Easterners.

On the other hand, shortly after the attacks of September 11, rumors circulated that thousands of Israeli employees of the World Trade Center, who might have been victims, stayed home on that day, having received warnings of a possible attack. I wondered at the likelihood of there being so many noncitizen Trade Center employees. Later rumors claimed that that these "no-show" employees were Jewish (as opposed to Israeli). The national Anti-Defamation League issued a statement claiming there was absolutely no truth to either of these claims. Anti-Semitism is real and alive in the United States and must be confronted.

My personal response to the situation is to wear a bright red T-shirt emblazoned with "I Love Arabs" on one side and "I Love Jews" on the other. I bought my T-shirt from the local chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which was selling the T-shirts jointly with Minnesota Jews for a Just Peace. I wore it to a peace demonstration held in Washington, D.C., shortly after September 11. If I had charged photographers even $20 for each picture of me in the shirt, the resulting sum would have enabled me to make a sizeable contribution to WAMM.