TITLE: Call Against Anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim Scapegoating

AUTHOR:

ORG: Oakland EON

DATE: Sept. 12, 2001

Oakland EON (Equal Opportunity Now) stands in sympathy with the teachers, staff and students of the Oakland Unified School District community who have relatives and friends who suffered in today's attacks in New York City and Washington DC. As the anti-racist caucus in the Oakland Education Association we call on all people to oppose and stand against anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim racism and xenophobic backlash in response to the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Oakland EON encourages you to oppose all nationalistic hysteria, all racist attacks and all scapegoating. Oakland EON in particular condemns all attacks on Arab, Islamic, and Middle-Eastern students, teachers and staff. We call on all EON supporters to speak out against racist and bigoted responses to the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We also call on the teachers, staff and students of the OUSD to oppose war hysteria and any US military retaliatory escalation. US military and foreign policy has reaped hatred, any US retaliation will escalate the hate of the US and worsen an already bad situation. How can we as teachers and staff tell students to walk away from a fight and live in a country that takes violent retaliation? After Pearl Harbor and the Oklahoma City bombing, racist hysteria against the Asian and Arab and Muslim populations laid the groundwork for arbitrarily blaming and targeting whole groups of people-we must not allow that to happen again. We must act on our understanding. Take action-help spread the word. A sample lesson plan for anti-racist response created by Westlake Middle School is on the back of this document. (sorry, we don?t have this on e-mail) Reminder: Don't forget to come to tonight's Rally and Speak Out at the School Board Meeting at 10th Street and 2nd Avenue beginning at 5:30PM. We must have justice for involuntarily transferred teachers. END top