Mon 12 May 2008
Wow…I don’t even know which direction to go with a comment on this…other than…consider the source. The female FOX anchor is blatantly going for shock value and how is a Seattle correspondent an expert on the matter?
I would love to hear people’s reactions to this! Comment below!
May 13th, 2008 at 12:58 am
What do you expect? It is interesting that they don’t even cite where they got their information on the material to be covered in the training. I was truly upset when I first saw this, knowing personally a number of the trainers.
Of some redeeming value was the follow up piece that KEZI did the night of the training. While cameras were not allowed, the reporter informed veiwers that the training was not about “how to talk to black people”, rather, it discussed how to treat people with respect and dignity. A far cry from the Faux “News” piece.
Check it out here:
http://www.kezi.com/article.aspx?id=34330
May 13th, 2008 at 11:18 am
fuck fox. way to spin a story.
May 13th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Apparently, the RG reported about this in 2007. Link to article below.
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=19183&sid=1&fid=1
I have to say…
This part is pretty darn racist.
“We can tell people about Papa’s Soul Food Kitchen, but if they’re more into pan-Asian, we can let them know that Ring of Fire is right down the street,” Fincher said. “We’re just highlighting what the community has to offer, not creating anything new.”
-RG Nov. 2008
May 13th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
We need cultural competency training in Eugene because lack of racial and ethnic diversity has the effect of making even those of us who once were competent less so (without training or conscious effort).
At least I used to be in a city where I was usually a racial minority (Washington DC) and became naturally more competent because I wasn’t racist and was motivated to have social connections with my neighbors, thus having social connections with people from lots of backgrounds.
Now I have to make an effort. It is sad, but true. I miss the easiness of being able to have culturally diverse social groups. Of course it is completely possible and my own fault for not making more of an effort, but no doubt it was easier before.
So, Fox is certainly not a fair and balanced news source, but I think there is some truth to the notion that Eugene has some work to do.
June 19th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Yes, Rose, We REAly do NEED it.
So, the “Progressive” community will understand why we need to have some one like me on the Board of Commissioners!!Instead of your beloved white Man “Rob Handy”!
Unlike your statement to Jack Roberts: Here is my response to your cultural competancy in our “Progressive LCDP”
Rose,
It so ironic to be so blindsided by your beloved Mr. Handy. When you stated that “Absolutely. I was DELIGHTED to lose the “token female””!
you didn’t only betrayed your gender as a female, but you didn’t have any respect to the fact I was a female candidate too in the race!!
Who has much more experience & knowledge, talents of Lane county issues than Mr. Handy does? Mr. Handy main concerns are the city issues -Such as potholes,annexation, River Road issues etc…-
He doesn’t strike me as a very strong candidate for what you “progressive” made him looks like! You can check your “Progressive EW” letter to the editor on May-08.
www.nadiasindi.com/issues.html
In addition, I would like you to know this fact about your gifted candidate, the one you were DELIGHTED to lose the “token female”.
Late on February, I met with Rob Handy, at the Public Library. After Rob hunted me down calling every one who possibly knows me including Ib Hamide..etc and few exchange email messages, to persuade me to drop out of the race!!
I stated all the facts of why I NEED to run for the County Commissioner seat!
Mr. Handy’s response to me was: Don’t worry Nadia; whispering in my ear that he was “running for all the women” so he can speak for us women too!!!”
If Mr. Handy was deserving your “Absolutely. I was DELIGHTED to lose the “token female”” Why then, Mr. Handy was so ashamed to say his statement loud in the pubic, and not being so embarrassed,to the point. He felt the need to whisper it in my ear instead of just voice it as the rest of our conversation!
–
Salaam. nadia
We will forget and forgive any judgment error that you make, but integrity
mistakes are forever.
– David Cottrell
I’m still in the RACE for Lane County Commissioner: Please, I need your
financial support, endorsement, VOTE. I’m running as “Write In”
www.nadiasindi.com
I’m one of the National Delegates for Sen. Barrack Obama:http://restricted.dpo.org/delegates/vp/1639.html
I am the Oregon Representative for:
www.StudentLoanJustice.Org
August 16th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 2008, pages 38-39
Three Views
Free Speech in America
Banned in the U.S.A. (Almost)
By Saree Makdisi
Author Saree Makdisi’s book.
I DIDN’T THINK America was a place where bookstores barred people for their viewpoints, until it happened to me, right here in Washington, DC, the city of my birth.
I was scheduled to speak at Politics and Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse last month about my latest book, Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation [available from the AET Book Club]. My appearance was canceled when the bookstore owners realized that my book concludes by questioning the viability of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead it proposes a single democratic, secular and multicultural state in which Israelis and Palestinians live peacefully as citizens with equal rights.
“I do not believe that your book will further constructive debate in the United States,” one of the owners wrote to me in an e-mail. “A single state is not a solution.” I was dismayed that my invitation was rescinded because I express a different point of view from the one sanctioned by a supposedly independent bookstore. Yet the cancellation seems to fit into a larger pattern of nationwide censorship about this issue.
Stanford professor Joel Beinin had been invited to speak about Israel and Palestine at a Silicon Valley school last year; his appearance was canceled when the school was criticized for booking the event. Tony Judt of New York University was invited to speak about Israel and Palestine at the Polish Consulate in New York last fall; his talk was canceled after the consulate came under pressure from the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee.
The fact that senior scholars are prevented from speaking in well-known forums because they do not toe an official line suggests that the civic culture on which our country was founded has broken down, at least when it comes to Palestine and Israel.
Yet citizens can object to the muzzling of ideas. After receiving letters of protest and eloquent entreaties by bloggers, Politics and Prose decided last week to reissue my invitation. This reversal is an important step forward but questions still linger. Can we afford not to hear each other out as we evaluate our Middle East policies? Should Palestinians not be allowed to speak unless their erstwhile audience gets to tell them what to say? What, then, is the point of a conversation? What is the alternative to conversation?
What is so unspeakably wrong with saying that justice, secularism, tolerance and equality of citizens—rather than privileges granted on the basis of religion—should be among the values of a state?
Saree Makdisi, author of Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, is a professor of English at UCLA. This op-ed first appeared in The Washington Post, June 8, 2008. Reprinted with permission.
Request to Cancel Politics and Prose Membership
By Grace Said
Dear Carla:
It is with sadness that I write to inform you that I have decided to cancel my membership at Politics and Prose, effective immediately. I have always been a supporter of independent bookstores. Politics and Prose, in particular, seemed to be the place for me. Visiting your store was always pleasant; the atmosphere, choice of books, the friendliness and knowledge of the staff, and the coffee shop have always made it a plus for me, and I am sure, for many others.
However, I was quite appalled to hear that you chose not to follow through with your invitation to Dr. Saree Makdisi, whose book, Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, describes the effect of the Israeli occupation on the lives of ordinary Palestinians. It is precisely this kind of book that needs to be promoted in the U.S., where the mainstream media and political pundits have deliberately avoided any discussion of the hardships endured by the Palestinians underoccupation.
Desmond Tutu, Howard Zinn, and Tarik Ali, amongst others, thought it sufficiently important to lend their names to Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. That Politics and Prose should choose to withdraw its invitation amounts to censorship of the worst kind. I would have thought that enlightened discussion on difficult and controversial issues would be your preferred mode of operating. Alas, you chose the easy way out by stifling the possibility of meaningful debate.
A final note—I am particularly disappointed in your decision because it seems to me that it is out of step with political discourse in the U.S. A change is taking place—finally there appears to be a more nuanced conversation on the issue of Palestine/Israel. On Friday for example, the LA Times published a long article on the growing appeal of the one-state solution; it also provided links for further reading. The Nakba, or catastrophe, which is the word Palestinians have used to describe their dispossession and exile, is finally being acknowledged and is more commonly used in the mainstream press. And countless bloggers have begun a vigorous and stimulating discussion about our unquestioned support of Israel. It is sad that you chose to ignore this trend, especially since Politics and Prose is considered one of the more liberal establishments in this city.
Sincerely,
Grace Said
Grace Said, a sister of the late Edward Said and aunt of Dr. Saree Makdisi, is an activist in the Washington, DC area and a member of the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace (WIAMEP).
Bookstore Owner Reinvites One-State Solution Author, But Doesn’t Explain Her Change of Heart, Nor Apologize
By Philip Weiss
Today’s Washington Post has a piece by author Saree Makdisi about his censorship by the bookstore Politics and Prose, and also a piece by bookstore-owner Carla Cohen, a vigorous opponent of the Israeli occupation, explaining her decision to disinvite Makdisi, then rescinding it, and reinviting him.
Cohen wrote: When I finally got a chance to read his book, especially its conclusion, I was very disturbed. As an American Jew, I support Israel, but I disapprove of its policies in the West Bank….Makdisi’s critique of Israel was not what bothered me; it was his solution.
He advocates one state in the place of the partition that was established by the United Nations in 1947. His solution would result in the elimination of the state of Israel. What could not be accomplished militarily would be accomplished demographically, since Palestinians outnumber Israelis. What is more, there is no guarantee that such a state would be democratic since, except for Israel, there is no history of democracy in the Middle East….
I feel that we in America, both Jews and Palestinians, have an obligation to lean on the United States to be a mediator to promote a peaceful conclusion to hostilities. My opposition to Makdisi’s book is that I found no such commitment. He is highly critical of Israel but not of the Palestinians or the Arab nations… Nevertheless, I now believe that I was mistaken to cancel Saree Makdisi’s presentation at Politics and Prose.
Cohen’s piece raises a few questions. She obviously feels very strongly about her politics in this area. Why then did she change her mind? She doesn’t say. Was it simply embarrassment at all the criticism? Did her role as activist supersede her role as bookseller, as I believe? I wanted to hear. Also, if it is so bad what she did, why didn’t she apologize?
But let’s move to substance. I think Cohen’s piece is important because she is expressing the attitude of a large segment of American Jewry. A fair solution, with a Palestinian state. And again, I’m now for the two-state solution myself. Still, she does not acknowledge, and liberal American Jews generally don’t, all that has gone wrong with the Zionist enterprise. She lauds Partition. Well, Partition was 56/44 or so, percentagewise. And now the Palestinians might be given about 20 percent, 60 years and a lot of footdragging later. She lauds the Israeli democracy, and fails to mention the second-class status of Israeli Arabs. She worries about the demographic threat to Israel—and doesn’t seem too concerned about the apartheid-like consequences of separating colonizer from indigenous populations. Makdisi presumably addresses all these issues. Maybe (like me) he tends to be too critical of Israel because all we hear in this country is criticism of Arabs. Maybe we should listen to his ideas, after witnessing the unending landgrabs of the Jewish state. Though, yes, I agree, Arab states have not much to recommend them politically, or in civil rights—still, the Palestinians have been stateless for eons on the grounds that Arabs can’t govern themselves.
At least Cohen has been there. Most liberal American Jews haven’t. This is the bigger issue. We love America. We get to have real power in America, great lives, lives of privilege and some pleasure. Politics and Prose, serving the elite. And we are minorities. But when it comes to the Middle East, Arabs are too degraded to be trusted to provide anything like that freedom to Jews. Again I’d note what John Mearsheimer and Rabbi Yisroel Weiss have said, that Jews lived better in Muslim societies than they did in Christian ones, when you look at history. I met a guy at AIPAC who grew up in Tehran. Jews were there for 2,000 years, he said, still are (now only a few thousand of them). We were there because it was a good place to live, and we got along, more or less, he said. Let’s try and unpeel the clash of civilizations a little bit, before we’re all toast.
Philip Weiss is a journalist who blogs on Mondoweiss, . This commentary was posted June 8, 2008. Reprinted with permission.
Editor’s Note: Saree Makdisi is scheduled to speak Sept. 25, 2008 at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC, .
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