Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 19 September 2002 — Page 4

The Muncie Times, September 19, 2002, page 4

NEWS BRIEFS

September 11 Did Not Cure Racism WASH I N GTO N - - Early attempts to ease the racial divide in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have apparently faded as White Americans have returned to a business-as-usual attitude toward racism, many grassroots and civil rights leaders say. “Post 9-11 we still face the same inequities and even more because of the obvious freedoms that are now being challenged under the guise of terrorism,” says the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit Branch of the NAACP. “But the fact that we have known terror and there’s still no legitimate move to address the domestic terror that’s visited upon African-Americans and people of color, i.e., racial profiling, hate crimes, the terror that goes with police abuse of their authority ... The fact that there is no national sense of urgency to address those concerns still leaves a void among the races.” Anthony cites congressional bills drafted to fight racism that never move out of committee year after year, such as bills against racial profiling, outlawing the death penalty, protecting against hate crimes and ending disparate sentencing in the criminal justice

system. “They have been pushed to the back burner and Black folk have been challenged to assume the posture of patriotism,” he says. James H. Buford, president and chief executive of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, agrees. He says complaints of housing and employment discrimination handled by his office has increased by 15 percent to 20 percent in the past year. “They’ve worsened. Nine-eleven has exacerbated race relations,” he says. “And it has been consistent.” Buford says the St. Louis Urban League’s human services caseload also has increased from 66,000 in all of last year to about 72,000 so far this year. “I think the stereotyping that the White community is doing is accelerating the situation in many ways.” The impact has been felt on the West coast, says the Rev. Asbury Jones, director of faithbased relations for the Nehemiah Corp.* an urban housing and economic development agency based in Sacramento, Calif. “Being way out here on the West Coast, we saw superficial improvement where everybody said, ‘Oh wow brothers and sisters,

Compiled by Andre’ Scott we’re all Americans.’ I mean, we definitely felt that out here,” he says. “But I think that was brief and short-lived and then on a deeper level, at a substantive level in this country, nothing has really changed. There’s still a tremendous wealth gap between particularly Whites and Blacks...In terms of opportunity and the chance for upward mobility, there still is a correlation with race.”

On the other hand, New York Times and CBS News poll report that a growing number of New Yorkers say they have seen a remarkable improvement in race relations since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center. The poll said that people were not only more tolerant, but less likely to complain about perceived injustices or prejudices. The poll found that 53 percent of AfricanAmericans, 56 percent of Hispanics and 69 percent of Whites believed that race relations are generally good. Just two years ago, only 16 percent of AfricanAmericans believed race

relations were good. But a National League of Cities poll of 73 cities and towns last March revealed that 41 percent of citizens say that race relations have improved since Sept. 11 and 59 percent said race relations had either not changed or worsened. “If I go to a different neighborhood or need a particular service or if I

don’t look a certain way, that dictates how people think,” says Damali Baxter, an AfricanAmerican finance student at Strayer University in Arlington, Va. “It hasn’t gotten any better. I don’t think it has changed. We’re still fighting against racism and discrimination.” And civil rights advocates now have new battles. Over the past year, Congress passed a string of new laws giving law enforcement agencies broad surveillance powers that civil rights advocates believe could further exacerbate race relations.

“I do believe we can be patriotic and still question the wisdom of some of the policies being instituted by President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft, who prior to 911 as we all know, were no friends of human rights and civil liberties,” Anthony says. “So, what makes us think that after 9-11 there’s going to be anything but what they’ve been prior to that?” While AfricanAmericans have long been victims of racial profiling and hate crimes, a surge of violent attacks were experienced by Arab -Americans immediately after Sept. 11. The 19 highjackers who crashed the three planes were all from the Middle East. In direct response, right-wing extremist hate groups increased by 12 percent last year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Montgomery, Ala. And some of that hate was directed at Arabs. “The first month was frightening,” says James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, an advocacy group for Arab interests in political and social issues. “Not just Arabs. ...Muslims who were Pakistanian and Indian and African-

NEWS BRIEFS SEE PAGE 4

On the other hand, New York imes and CBS News poll report that a growing number of New Yorkers say they have seen a remarkable improvement in race relations since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at the World ^ ^ Trade Center.