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Indybay Feature

Against the Racism in Bush's Policies

by afgasdf
I was arrested at the Oakland docks on Monday. As an Arab-American, I feel I was given differential treatment and that this is evidence of national discrimination against Arabs, in general. Unite against Bush and racism.
I was one of those illegally arrested at the picket at the Oakland docks on Monday. I am still shocked and awed that police would disrupt a legal, peaceful rally, trampling on our First Amendment rights, just so some multinationals can make a few million dollars.
The reaction to this protest showed the racist undercurrents of Bush's War Against Terrorism. While in county jail, I was asked by the deputies where I was born. I was the only protester asked this and I can only assume it was because I was had spent hours talking with my fellow protesters about how I was a Syrian-American and standing up for fellow Arabs who are being discriminated against in the name of security. When I answered "Los Angeles", the deputies snickered and joked: "Los Angeles? That's in America, right?" as if they just wished they could throw me to the INS. I stood there in amazement that I was being subjected to the same racial harassment I was protesting against.
Don't believe our government when they claim there is no discrimination going on. At the moment hundreds of Iraqi refugees are being detained in America on no charges and thousands more are being monitored. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the MIddle East, as well as Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, and N. Korea, have been forcibly registered with the INS, including my uncle who is a doctor and saves lives for a living.
It is time for all discriminated minorities -- blacks, browns, yellows, the poor, the unionized -- to fully unite with the anti-war movement and take a stand against this war, against racism, and against the domestic policies of the Bush administration.
Remember the response of an under-secretary of the Homeland Security Department when queried about the internment camps of WWII was: some Japanese-Americans actually wished to harm America which justified detaining all of them. There is NEVER justification for mass detentions without evidence but that is the direction this country is going when all those who oppose Bush polices are derided as anti-American and in league with the terrorists.
I am a patriotic American and I have nowhere else to go so don't tell me to leave my country. This does not mean, though, I will stand by and let my America descend to tyranny.
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by Home of the Free
I agree that we need to address racism in America's policies. We've already addressed white supremacism, and now we need to address Zionism, which is Jewish supremacism, which is driving this war along with Zionists' unholy greedy allies, like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
I am a white American Christian woman and I am so dismayed that our country is being dragged down with violent racism that is this war against the Arab world, as envisioned by the Zionist architects of this war as revealed even on the Zionists own websites! It's no secret and not even a conspiracy (anymore)! Just do a google search on "Clean Break" and New American Century. Who can stop the Zionists? Anyone up for this task before it's too late? Israel is so regressing back into the most vilest exhibitions of racism: for one example, the Apartheid Wall they are building!! The list is positively encyclopedic!
Impossible to Understand the USA Without studying White Racism, the history of race relations and the horror of perpetrated by White America. Far from ending with the civil rights movement, racism is alive and well and resides in the White House and Supreme Court. Cheney has repeated several time he understands the "Arab Mind" because he reads Bernard Lewis. White Racists used to they say they understand the "N--- mind", and this it's present day equivalent.
by Pierre Basmaji
I am sorry but I view intense anti-Zionism, including your response, as another form of hate. Most Zionists are not land-grabbing Arab-killers. I know some Zionists who just wish for the opportunity to live in peace with their Arab cousins in Israel-Palestine as I do with them in this country. They protest against the institutionalized racism in the Israeli government, just as I protest against the racism here.
by Margaret

That is revolting behavior on the part of the deputies, and (unfortunately) consistent with the stories posted here by other detainees.

For what it's worth I want to express my thanks for going out to the docks at all. Even though it was supposed to be a legal and peaceful protest (and was until the cops started the illegal violence), we all know it is a risk for people of color and especially Arab-Americans to demonstrate right now. I know that my Indian roommate is terrified of arrest and has been frightened away from doing any direct action, whether legal or misdemeanor-level, and I can't blame him. So I have to admire your courage and your patriotism.
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