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CNN Saturday Morning News
The Unfortunate Backlash in Terrorism's Wake
Aired September 22, 2001 - 08:42 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: So many heartwarming uplifting stories the past 10, 11 days, but also a great deal of pain across the United States. And that pain has at times manifested itself in acts of violence.
CNN's Frank Sesno now examines the terrorism backlash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANK SESNO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Expressions of hate directed against Arab-Americans. A mosque in Cleveland rammed by a car. An Iraqi owned pizzeria in Massachusetts torched. A man wearing a turban shot and killed at a gas station in Arizona. One watchdog group has catalogued more than 250 incidents so far. The FBI is looking into more than 50 specific complaints.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There have been some women who have been attacked and many of my family members and friends have advised me to change the way I dress.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith.
SESNO: The president has repeatedly condemned the backlash. Before a joint session of Congress and during a visit to a mosque.
BUSH: Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't represent the best of America. They represent the worst of humankind and they should be ashamed.
NIHAD AWAD, COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS: It was very comforting for us and very comforting for the Muslim ladies who have not been out of their houses for the past few days, for the many schools that have been shut down, for the mosques that have not performed religious prayers.
SESNO: Despite the president's reassuring words, many Arab- Americans, Muslims and others feel they are being singled out and are under suspicion. Example, a Pakistani American is flying first class when a Delta Airlines pilot approaches him before departing San Antonio.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He asked me that Chican (ph), I want you to pick up your bag and come out from this flight because me and my crew are not safe flying with you.
SESNO: Delta says it takes the incident seriously and has, quote, "sympathy for all parties involved."
AWAD: To see myself and my fellow Muslims and Arabs being stopped in airports because of our look, because of our feature, because of our names, because of the way that we dress I think speaks volumes.
SESNO: These ethnic overtones prompt some to draw parallels to another painful chapter in American history, Pearl Harbor and its aftermath.
CHERRY TSUTSUMIDA: Pearl Harbor happened and our whole life changed and suddenly we were put into the role of the enemy and we were also assumed to be guilty of some crimes which they never defined.
SESNO: Cherry Tsutsumida remembers. She was one of 120,000 Japanese-Americans who were rounded up and sent to internment camps. She was seven years old at the time.
TSUTSUMIDA: My father was taken away right after the war broke out in December and I was at school. And the kids came and they said hey, your father is a Jap and he was taken by the FBI. And I never saw my father again until the Thanksgiving of 1943.
SESNO: Slurs and stereotypes reinforced the government's campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUGS BUNNY: Here's some scrap iron for Japan, Moto.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SESNO: And popular imagery for years to come.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUGS BUNNY: Here, one for you, monkey face. Don't shout. There's plenty for all. Here you are, slant eyes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SESNO: It took nearly 50 years for the U.S. government to formally apologize. Just this summer, a memorial honoring those who were sent to the camps, commemorating how far America has come since.
(on camera): Surely the U.S. is a different, far more diverse and tolerant country now. But in times like this, with the nation under attack, people may fear those they don't know or understand. The American melting pot tested yet again.
Frank Sesno, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: To explore this dynamic a bit further now, we are joined here in our Washington bureau by Mr. Hussein Ibish of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and in New York, Hardyal Singh. He is a member of the American Sikh community.
Mr. Singh, I want to start with you first because you were near the World Trade Center on the day of the attacks. Tell us about your firsthand experience.
HARDYAL SINGH, AMERICAN SIKH: Yes, I work for Bank of New York at 101 Park Place and I take the PATH train every day coming from New Jersey. So I reached the station like around 8:55 and when I walked out and I looked up, my gosh, it was completely on fire. And it was absolutely horrific and very painful and saddening to see all that.
And initially I stood there just to see maybe -- I mean initially we didn't know that it's a plane that's hit and I thought that maybe, you know, it's like a gas pipe that's broken or something gone wrong. And I stood there thinking maybe I can help the fire people and police people to get help, you know?
But then later on when the second explosion happened, that was the thing when everything broke out loose and there was a stampede effort and I had to run to save my life.
KING: And people taunting you, sir?
SINGH: Yes. When I walk on the streets sometimes just people look at us, you know, and, you know, hoot and say, you know, pass remarks. But the reality of the matter is that Sikhs and -- Sikhism actually is an entirely different religion, just as how Christianity, Judaism and Islam is. Sikhism by itself doesn't preach, you know, violence in regard to, you know, against people, you know, who are innocent at all in any sense, you know?
The media streaming images of the Taliban and bin Laden actually have made Sikhs suspects and victims, not only the Sikhs, but there are other communities also who have been targeted. And the reality, again, as I say, is that the Sikhs share no political, religious or cultural links with the followers of bin Laden and the Taliban.
KING: Hussein Ibish here in Washington.
Sir, tell us about the scope of the reports into your organization about the trouble and if you will your comments. The president almost every day has spoken out about this, urging Americans to be tolerant. Has that been helpful?
HUSSEIN IBISH, AMERICAN-ARAB COMMITTEE: Well, I think it's been extremely helpful and I think it's not only a moral issue, it's also a strategic issue. He has laid out a foreign policy for us which is centered on a strategic alliance with most, if not almost all, Arab and Muslim countries. And so, you know, we cannot be perceived around the world as a nation which is intolerant to Arabs and Muslims. And if Arab-Americans and American Muslims are being shot and beaten in the streets and thrown out of airplanes on a regular basis, really it's going to make our foreign policy, our new foreign policy, in particular, almost impossible to succeed.
But to tell you a little bit about the incidents we've been receiving, the reports, we've had now over 300 confirmed cases of violent incidents against Arab-Americans and Muslims in the United States. And when I say violent incidents I mean either acts of violence or direct threats of specific acts of violence.
So we're talking everything from vandalism to murder and everything in between. And now we have this rash of people who are either are Arab-Americans or who are perceived to be Arab-Americans being thrown off of airplanes.
We have compiled seven incidents in the past two days of passengers or crews throwing people off of airplanes after they've passed through the very rigorous security that we have, after having been seated, waiting to take off and then being ejected from airplanes just because of their perceived ethnicity.
KING: All right, we need to wrap there because of time constraints.
We thank you both for your thoughts, Hussein Ibish here in Washington, Hardyal Singh in the New York bureau this morning. Thank you very much. And now back to Bill Hemmer in New York.
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