American Samoan Attorney General Fiti Sunia announced a policy over the summer that bans anyone of Middle Eastern decent from the island, which is an unincorporated U.S. territory. The ban, which cites the U.S. State Department as its basis, orders officials to âtake special note of arriving passengers and all other individuals seeking entry to the territory for persons with Middle Eastern surnames and features.â
And for some reason, nothing's exploded since. Somebody's gotta teach those daggone Samoans how to be politically correct, so they can take their casualties along with the rest of us. So join with the Arab American Institute:Write to to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Ralph Boyd, and Interior Secretary Gale Norton and let them know that this policy is UNACCEPTABLE.
Include the following information points:
· The ban on people based solely on their Middle Eastern heritage, amounts to the most broad and worst form of racial and ethnic profiling.
· American Samoa is a U.S. territory and their policy is a violation of United States laws, which prohibit discrimination based on race and ancestry.
· American Samoan Attorney General Fiti Sunia should apologize and should immediately terminate the use of this discriminatory policy. Like millions of other Americans, I've got this on my "to do" list... ummm... somewhere. (WaPO has the whole sordid story here... Now where's that "to do" list...?) |