Report on the Empowerment of Hate

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

From inception, America has been a shamefully racist society. Today, more Black men and youths are imprisoned, on probation or parole than any previous time in US history. 

Most Black youths can expect criminal injustice prosecutions one or times in their lives. Over 60% of Black men born since passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act without high school degrees have prison records.

Black and Latino inner cities are battlegrounds, their residents terrorized.

Muslims are persecuted for their faith, ethnicity, prominence, activism and charity - innocent men and women falsely called terrorists, used for political advantage.

The late Jack Shaheen explained how they've been vilified and used as fair game throughout decades of cinematic history (from silent films to recent ones), fostering prejudicial attitudes while reinforcing notions of Western values, high-mindedness, and moral superiority.

America is at war with Islam at home and abroad, its enemy of choice after Soviet Russia's 1991 dissolution, portraying them as dangerous gun-toting terrorists, Muslims from designated countries banned from traveling to the United States.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) "challenges stereotypes of Islam and Muslims." It's an advocacy group for US Muslims, promoting civil rights, diversity and freedom of religion for all Americans.

In May, it published a report, titled "The Empowerment of Hate." "Islamophobic bias continues its trend toward increasing violence," it explained.

In 2016, anti-Muslim incidents increased 57% year-over-year - including a 44% increase in Islamophobic hate crimes.

From 2014 through 2016, anti-Muslim incidents increased by 65%. Over the same period, Islamophobic hate crimes "surged 584 percent." Types of abuses in 2016 were as follows:

nonviolent incidents (18%);

Muslims interrogated or "inappropriately targeted" by the FBI (15%);

discriminatory employment practices, including "denial of work, being passed over for promotion, or harassment by a supervisor or other senior staff (13%);"

hate crimes (12%); and

"(d)enials of religious accommodation," including complaints about women wearing headscarfs and prisoners having a Quran in their cells (8%).

The most common anti-Muslim trigger was the targeted individual's ethnicity or national origin, followed by women wearing headscarfs, organized Muslim events, a person's name and place of worship.

The FBI was mostly responsible for incidents instigated by Washington, followed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Customs and Border Patrol, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Racial and religious profiling is rife in America. According to CAIR, 2017 so far has been one of the worst years for anti-Muslim hate crimes - spiking 91% over the same 2016 period from January through June. Other Islamophobic incidents also rose sharply. 

CAIR criticized Christopher Wray, Trump's new FBI director, saying as Bush/Cheney Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, his "communications blackout" of mass Muslim arrests post-9/11 was unconstitutional.

He "misled the (Senate Judiciary Committee) over the extent of his, and the DOJ's, awareness of torture occurring at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq," said CAIR. 

"The extent of (his) interaction with, and draft review of, the Bush Administration's now defunct 'Torture Memo' remains unclear."

Abusive treatment of Muslims at home and abroad post-9/11 grievously violated international, constitutional and US statute laws.

The pattern continued under Obama and now Trump. It's the wrong time to be Muslim in America and in its targeted countries.

They're vilified, persecuted and/or slaughtered for praying to the wrong God or being a national of the wrong country at the wrong time.

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