A.Dr Ziad Asali speaks before the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Atlanta October 5, 2002 regarding the discrimination Arab-Americans are facing in the wake of September 11 and the work the ADC-GA has pursued via lawsuits, media, and organi
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"Religious leaders, political leaders are being allowed to demonize Arabs, Arab-Americans and even Islam as being a religion of thugs and terrorists, of Arab Americans as all being thugs and terrorists without penalty and without public censure, this is the climate we are living in the United States today."
These were the words of Dr Ziad Asali of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee before a gathering of Arab Americans in Atlanta held today, October 5 2002 in conjunction with a series of public demonstrations held in Atlanta this week protesting the policies of AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, which is meeting this weekend in Atlanta. Nearly $3 billion dollars of American taxpayer money goes to support the Israeli Army each year in their war against the Palestinian people.
"What we are here for is to say that we are Americans and Arabs and first and foremost we are American Citizens."
"We sued three multi-billion dollar airline companies when they did not allow Arab Americans to fly on airplanes, even after they had been checked by security three times each still they were not allowed to fly. We sued them and it has not happened again to a single passenger, not a single one. Still, we must organize or else tomorrow it may happen again, even to me."
"Let us not pretend that people are preventing us from organizing, we as individuals are full of success stories, we need to defend ourselves collectively. We come from 43 different countries, from so many cultures and walks of life but we are here and we are Americans. We are not going back , we came here, our children were born here, their children will be born here."
"We need to use this system to empower us, it is an open system and it is just as accessible to us as it is to any other group in this country and we need to use. We need to show up at our legislators offices, at their rallies, let them know we are a presence, that we are here and we matter."
"There are people out there who don't want us here, don't want us anywhere but we will organize - we belong here, this is now our country too and we deserve to be treated as first class citizens, to be treated as Americans."
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