Abdi Soltani is executive director of the ACLU of Northern California, where he writes—Iranian Americans Have Rights, Too — No Matter What's Happening Abroad:
Like most Iranian Americans, my family immigrated to the United States in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution in Iran, hoping to find safety and acceptance in a country that prides itself on diversity and freedom of expression. We learned and embraced the principles of the Constitution, including freedom of speech and religion, due process, and equal protection — protections that apply to every person, citizen and non-citizen alike. But what happened at the U.S. border this past weekend was a painful reminder that sometimes, we are still considered outsiders.
In the state of Washington this weekend, U.S. border authorities summarily detained and interrogated Iranian Americans and lawful permanent residents who were on their way home from Canada. Many were returning from holiday trips to visit family in Vancouver, which is also home to a large Iranian community. Many had gone there for a pop concert. Many were simply on vacation. But that’s not the point. The point is that these people — families, young and old, even small children — were singled out because of their Iranian heritage.
The news is highly disturbing, but it isn’t the first time Iranian Americans have faced discrimination based on political tensions outside of our control. Nor is it the first time border and law enforcement officers have conducted unmerited abuses targeting vulnerable communities. We’ve seen the government abuse the rights of Americans of Somali, Afghan, and Pakistani descent following military action as well. But amid the anti-immigrant, Constitution-flouting policies of the current administration, this news was chilling. [...]
As political tensions continue to flare between the U.S. and Iran, it is important to know our rights — and assert them.
The Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law and protects against discriminatory profiling and violations of First Amendment rights. We cannot allow actions abroad to be exploited as justifications for illegal and unfair discrimination at home.
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“If we had done the work that we should have done in the 20th century to combat our history of racial inequality, no one could win national office after demonizing people because they're Mexican or Muslim. We would be in a place where we would find that unacceptable.”
~~Bryan Stevenson, New York Times Magazine (2019)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—Science Friday: There is No Controversy:
Ever since the terms "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" first made the news, the right has been engaged in an effort to ridicule the whole notion. Man could have an effect on the atmosphere? Pshaw! Okay, so Rush Limbaugh and the Fox airheads don't actually say pshaw. Instead, they've said that the idea of a human-caused climate change is "ridiculous," and "malarkey" and a "farce." (I'd give you links for those, but adding a link to Limbaugh and friends would give me a rash).
Most of all, they've pushed the idea that our increasing thirst for flammable hydrocarbons might just cause an eensy change in the environment is controversial. Sure, sure, we might be having a hot year—or two, or ten—but that doesn't mean people had anything to do with it. After all, we're so small and the atmosphere is just so big. How could a little old us possibly have more effect than volcanoes, or cyclical changes, or the bad old carbon fairy, or whatever cause the right wants to put forward this week? We changed the air? Huh, that's just controversial.
They've depended on paid shills to generate pop-science FUD, and like the mercenaries of ignorance who constantly try to make it seem as if there's some scientific debate around evolution, they've created smoke in the hopes of making people believe there's a fire. They've created fake organizations dedicated to spreading misinformation (current headline "Earth's plants tell us they're loving the CO2 increase!") They've even made a hero out of Michael Crichton (the one man whose ego might be larger than Bush and Rush combined) and his account of a Global Warming "conspiracy," frequently citing his poorly-researched fictional tome as proof of the evil left wing environmentalist attempt to strip away your Hummer.
The trouble with this notion is that the folks who stole the "it's only a theory" page from the whacko creationists are lying. There is no controversy. There's been none in scientific journals, and no, scientists did not think we were going to freeze just a decade ago, no matter how many times the shills say they did. With every passing day, the evidence becomes more compelling.