Fighting racism after Boston: A Dearborn resident’s view
After 9/11, my high school cafeteria split in half: Arab-Americans on one side, everybody else on the other. I don't know why, but I felt like I had to choose a side. I chose to sit with nobody. Growing up in Dearborn, Michigan, I lived in a city where 40 percent of the population is from the Mediterranean and many are of the Muslim...
Not in my name: A reflection on the Muslim and Arab American community response to the Boston Marathon bombings
April 26th, 20130 It has been nearly two weeks since the Boston Marathon bombings, yet no amount of time that will pass can alleviate the remaining shock of having, once again, become targets in our own backyards. This time, the attack took place during one of our country’s most cherished annual traditions. The first thoughts that Muslim and...What we did to Iraq
The U.S. public was always carefully protected by its media from full knowledge of what the U.S. government did to Iraq. The networks had a rule, of never showing blood. They almost never showed wounded Iraqis with bloody bandages. Of course, they never showed dismemberment (bodies blown up, unlike in Hollywood movies, don’t just pile...Challenging your property tax assessment in Michigan
Metro Detroit — It’s that time of year again — local residents and business owners are receiving their property tax “notice of assessment.” After five years of a battered real estate market, many suspect that they are being overtaxed on inflated values or properties. Although data suggests that residential home prices are...The hour scoop: A breakdown of Dearborn’s ‘Arabic time’
Arab Dearborners of the 90’s will recall this little tune from the evening lineup of an Arabic television program broadcasted locally on cable, which was, until the advent of Internet and satellite TV, one of the local Arab community’s links to the Arab world along with several Arabic cable programs that was driven out of business by...
A peaceful but difficult farewell
January 12th, 20130 It was an extraordinary Monday morning by all measures. The sun was shining and there wasn't a single cloud in the crisp, bright sky. At the same time, it was a day that I never wanted to come. It was 10 in the morning and time for the countdown for Kay Siblani's funeral services, then to the grave site where she would be laid to...
Kay’s story is our story
January 5th, 20130 The June 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon that led to the occupation of its capital Beirut again exposed a glaring lack of Arab opinion in America's mainstream media, and it became a breaking point later that year for three individuals from different worlds who wanted to make a change. The biased reporting on Arab issues that continued...
Blackburn, Lane re-elected despite puzzling endorsements for Petlichkoff
November 12th, 20120 Even though former Dearborn School Board member Mary Petlichkoff had the endorsement of Dearborn Mayor Jack O'Reilly, five Dearborn City Council Members, the current State Rep. and a former State Rep, she failed to win a seat on the School Board, and was defeated by a wide margin. When all votes were tallied, Aimee Blackburn came...
Election 2012: Accomplishments we can build on
November 9th, 20120 There's no such thing as a perfect Election Night, but for the Arab American community in Dearborn, this past Tuesday's results, and the historic turnout in our community that made them possible, constituted something pretty close. First off, give yourselves a big hand. Despite the ongoing logistical challenges many in our...
Blackburn, Lane re-elected despite puzzling endorsements for Petlichkoff
November 9th, 20120 Even though former Dearborn School Board member Mary Petlichkoff had the endorsement of Dearborn Mayor Jack O'Reilly, five Dearborn City Council Members, the current State Rep. and a former State Rep, she failed to win a seat on the School Board, and was defeated by a wide margin. When all votes were tallied, Aimee Blackburn came...U.S. housing market threatened by changes to short sales
DETROIT — As lenders continue to see rising default rates and a backlog of foreclosures and bad debt piling up, short sales have been extremely attractive to sellers, banks, buyers and realtors. Instead of having a house sit vacant for months at a time, mortgage servicers have successfully used the short sale process to determine which...Romney anything but a moderate on foreign policy issues
I have been reading Mitt Romney's memoir, ‘No Apology.’ It is as if Romney is two people, one a wise, thoughtful person who could work with Democrats and lead the country, the other an unreflective, unsophisticated ideologue who is dangerous. The chapter on health care shows a man who has done his homework. I know this field...The glaring contradiction in anti-Iran policy
President Barack Obama, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have at least one thing in common when it comes to Iran. All are guilty of flagrant self-contradiction.Each says that a nuclear-armed Iran could not be effectively contained the way the U.S. government contained the...Weapons of Mass Distraction: The big, long lie about Iraq lingers still
The Iraq War remains with us as long as the lies continue and those responsible avoid accountabilityTen years ago, on October 10, 2002, the United States House of Representatives made one of the most calamitous mistakes of a generation. Congress, with willful blindness, voted to attack, invade and occupy a sovereign, oil-rich nation in...Did Romney ‘win’ the debate?
In the presidential debate that I watched on Wednesday night, Republican challenger Mitt Romney was shiftier than Dick Nixon in 1960 and less coherent than George W. Bush in 2000, but the TV pundits, including on MSNBC, overwhelmingly declared him the winner.When I tried to follow Romney’s logic, I couldn’t. Somehow the federal......
Government must join us in efforts to stop hate
September 22nd, 20120 There's a true disaster going on in this country today. It's a crisis of no conscience, a revolution over race, a dance with the devil, a handshake with hate. Nowhere is this culture of evil more evident than in the raging Islamophobia sweeping the country. Day after day, week after week, Muslims and Sikhs are being harrased,...
Misreading the Arab street’s anger
September 22nd, 20120 We begin by noting our sadness over the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the others who were killed at the consulate in Benghazi. Hillary knew and worked with Chris Stevens during her service in the State Department; he was very highly regarded, professionally and personally, among his colleagues. People watch as they stand......
We need the truth on 9/11
Another year has passed since the awful attacks on 9/11. As always, we send condolences to all those who lost loved ones on that day, and praise and gratitude to all those who so readily assisted in the rescue and recovery of survivors. What other Americans rarely think of are the millions of Arabs killed by us in wars in the Arab World...
Managing Mideast’s anti-Americanism
September 14th, 20120 Reactions to the deadly incident in Benghazi and the less lethal protest at the U.S. embassy in Cairo have been part of a swirl of grief, anger, bigotry, diplomacy, politics and much else. We should keep a few essentials in mind.What took place was not a single type of phenomenon, executed by a single type of perpetrator. We are seeing...
Reflecting on 9/11, faith and American ideals
September 14th, 20120 On September 13, 2001 our campus at the University of Michigan-Dearborn held a community event to reflect on the attacks of two days earlier. We were still reeling from the trauma of what had happened. I was one of three speakers (including Chancellor Little and Associate Dean Anderson-Levitt). These were my thoughts on that day. I...Labor Day tips from the U.S. Labor Secretary
On Labor Day 2012 and every day, one of my top priorities is to help those in Michigan and around the country looking for work get the training they need for good-paying jobs. By 2020, 17 of the 30 fastest-growing occupations will require a postsecondary certificate or degree. In fact, employers are actively looking to fill nearly 4......
Due process under duress: Detaining citizens under NDAA
Activists retaliate against the U.S. government by suing them for signing a bill they say goes against the ConstitutionThe U.S. government seems determined to have the power to do away with due process and Americans' right to a trial.I am one of the lead plaintiffs in the civil lawsuit against the National Defense Authorization Act,...
Assessing the real risks in Syria
August 26th, 20120 For some time, Sen. John McCain and the Wilsonian neoconservatives have been beating the drum to escalate the U.S. intervention in Syria. Now, from the other side of the political spectrum, the Wilsonian progressives are calling for the same solution. The hawks on the left and right abhor each other on most policy issues, but in foreign......
Lebanon needs a Spring of ideas
Lebanon and Syria are close and intertwined: demographically, geographically, culturally, politically and historically. Lebanon was carved partially out of Syria in 1920. Every other Lebanese person has a relative, a business partner or a friend in Syria.If the uprising in Syria is a process of genuine renewal, Lebanon is bound to...Moving closer to unnecessary war with Syria
Last week the House passed yet another bill placing sanctions on Iran and Syria, bringing us closer to another war in the Middle East. We are told that ever harsher sanctions finally will force the targeted nations to bend to our will. Yet the ineffectiveness of previous sanctions teaches us nothing; in truth sanctions lead to war more......
