PERSPECTIVES The Michigan Daily Page 7 Wade censord: Black Americans are denied By Kalyn Johnson T WO WEEKS ago, The Detroit News ran a syndicated piece by Lawrence Wade entitled, America Owes Me Only What Everyone Gets. Wade opposed the $40-billion education fund introduced in Congress to compensate Afro- Americans for the injustices endured by their ancestors during slavery. The proposal, in the form of a reso- lution, was passed by the Detroit City Council on May 17 and has been recommended for state-wide ap- proval. Wade presents a personal ar- gument in his article which begins, "America owes this Black man noth- ing," and continues with attacks on Black leaders and Affirmative Action policies in this country. This is one Black woman who disagrees with Wade's assertions. He argues from the perspective of an "educated" Black man- an elitist position at best- and camouflages the experience and struggle of other Black people who have been denied basic rights to housing, education Black people everyday because the Action and the current $40-billion and healthcare. Wade's reliance on ideals and stereotypes espoused dur- education fund before Congress. federal laws, or the judicial system, ing slavery are still present in our Wade's idyllic conception of the to correct fundamental inequities in society. world and the United State's role our society is unsubstantiated based For example, the one test- the therein is reminiscent of the blind on the continuum of racist incidents SAT- that most college bound se- patriotism that allowed Japanese- across the nation and on our own niors are required to take is saturated Americans to be interned in concen- campus. Obviously the "law" is not with cultural specific language and tration camps during WWII. providing equal protection. experience. Not only is the test itself Ironically, an initiative similar to Although everyone is "supposed" biased, but also is its basis for cre- the educational fund proposal was to be able to attain the great ation. passed last year by Congress in the American "dream" that Wade alludes In 1923, Carl Campbell Brigham, form of a reparations bill which fi- to, not everyone gets an equal chance founder of the SAT, stated, "We nancially compensated Japanese- to realize this utopian goal. Because of this imbalance, there must be sys- 'There are obstacles placed before Black people tem-wide changes, such as everyday because the ideals and stereotypes espoused Affirmative Action, Bi-lingual edu- cation and HEAD START programs during slavery are still present in our society.' that facilitate the education -and growth of peoples in this country must face a possibility of racial ad- Americans who were interned. Since who have been historically denied mixture here that is infinitely worse this bill was passed with little pub- these rights. than that faced by any European lic outrage, why is compensation for Mr. Wade, a Black man living in country today for we are incorporat- Blacks in Wade's viewpoint, such a Washington, D.C., said in the clos- ing the negro onto our racial stock, hard concept to realize? ing of his article: "Isn't it time that while all of Europe is comparatively The world, unfortunately, does not we put this race foolishness behind free from this taint." The retention see Afro-Americans, simply as us and realized that the world sees us of these types of skewed ideas and "Americans" (to quote Wade). all as one: American?" The answer is prejudices are what fostered a need Although Black American activists no. There are obstacles placed before for programs such as Affirmative have tried to aid their brothers and access sisters in South Africa and have asked the United States to impose sanctions, this country has proved consistently through policies toward South Africa that it supports the privileged few; those who are white and most often, wealthy. Finally, if all Americans are "given" equal opportunities, why is- it that Black people are underrepre- sented in every sector of our society and overrepresented in our prison system? Once recognition has been given to the root of the problem- continued social injustice and marginalization of Black culture, ex- perience and existence - we can work toward creating an equal soci- ety. The education resolution passed by the Detroit City Council is a step in the right direction. It marks the beginning of rectifying centuries of benign neglect. Kalyn Johnson is an LSA senior, majoring in English. Kalyn will be a Minority Peer Advisor at Mary Markley in the Fall. Prospect article is racist By the Muslim Students Association The latest in what seems to be a series of attacks on the Muslim and Arab communities in Ann Arbor occured in the pages of the March/April 1989 issue of a cam- pus Jewish magazine, Prospect. In this last issue, the article, "The Jews We Forgot," and the accom- panying box, "Jews in the Moslem, World," written by Sharon Parrott and Elissa Sard were racist and of- fensive to both Muslims and Arabs. They contained many inaccura- cies, biases and insults which per- petuate stereotypes and hurt the credibility of this voice for Jewish students on campus. If the views in this magazine are reflective of Jewish students on this campus, then the future prospects of living without antagonism between the re- spective communities are indeed dim. In the following paragraphs, we have tried to address a few of the more glaring problems in the arti- cle: 1. "The Moslem (sic) world con- sists of Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrein, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Sudan, Syria and Yemen" (p. 4). There are approximately 1 billion Muslims today; all the countries listed above comprise only about 24 percent of the total Muslim population (See The Cultural Atlas of Islam by Ismael Faruqi and Lois Faruqi). The fact that all of the countries the authors have listed are generally associated with the "Middle East" is not surprising-it's a common myth found in U.S. mainstream media that the Muslim world is comprised largely of Arab coun- tries. In reality, Arab people consti- tute only about 12 percent of all Muslim peoples; the largest Muslim nation population-wise is Indonesia, followed by Pakistan, and then by either China or Bangladesh. - mma 2. "As Arab fundamentalism grows in Iran, Jews fear what may come" (p. 5). Iranians are not Arab, they are Persians. They do not speak Arabic, but Farsi. A mistake like this can only be made by a per- son who is either very ignorant, or who has a bigoted view of Arabs, Muslims and Iranians. What the au- thors probably meant to write was "As Islamic fundamentalism...." This is an editorial mistake that has many implications. It once again reflects the misconception that all Arabs are Muslim (& vice versa), and therefore it is okay to use these words interchangeably. More signif- icantly, it assumes that Arabs (and therefore Muslims) are de facto - )0' threats to Jews. Why else would Jews fear "Arab fundamentalism?" Considering that there is no ideology that can be called specifically "Arab," "Arab fundamentalism" can only mean an expression of Arab culture or eth- nicity. The authors' claim is purely racist: it labels a person as a threat simply because of his/her racial and cultural origins. 3. "In 1864, Arab bands pillaged Jewish communities in Tunisia" (p. 4). Arabs are not one homogeneous group. There are Arab Muslims, Arab Jews, Arab Christians, and many other kinds of Arabs. Therefore, claiming that "Arab bands pillaged... destroy(ed)... rap(ed)" is both racist and offensive because the statement draws no distinction between the Arabs involved. Parrott and Sard are blinded by stereotyped that present Arabs as terrorists and murderers. Similarly, the article also reads, "the Arab community began to riot; over 200 Jews were killed" (p. 5). The authors are again drawing a non-existent dichotomy between Arabs and Jews in the above con- texts; the Jews living within the community, along with their pre- sumably Muslim neighbors, were all Arabs. There were definitely gross injus- tices done to Jews of past eras, but in their zeal to present this, the au- thors used myths and racist stereo- types. They also largely ignored the fact that many of the advances of Jewish culture and literature oc- curred under "Moslem" govern- ments, particularly those in the Iberian peninsula. During the several centuries of Muslim rule, Hebrew acquired its first grammar and Jewish arts and sciences rose to new heights. Jews were also an important part of the political system-Hasdai ben Shapirut, for example, was a prominent Jewish Prime Minister in Cordoba under Abd al Rahman III (see The Cultural Atlas of Islam). In the Spanish Inquisition against Muslims and Jews which followed the Muslim rule of Spain, Jews sought asylum in Muslim lands in North Africa. The intense animosity that Parrott's and Sard's article is an ex- ample of, is a relatively new phe- nomena which grew out of the pro- cess of establishing the state of Israel in 1948. The indignation of Palestinian Arabs against a group of newcomers declaring sovereignty over their land, and the attempt by these Zionist newcomers to treat the Palestinian Arabs as non-enti- ties, or at best sub-humans, has been the source of this antagonism. The University campus has seen many attacks against Arabs and Muslims in the past year. Now, the article in this last issue of Prospect can be added to the list. We feel an apology is in order from the editors to the Arab and Muslim communi- ties of Ann Arbor. Contact the Muslim Students Asso- at the Islamic Center. , . .