This is part of a speech I made to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) when they were in Chicago last week, and that I turned into an open letter to the American Media to demand that she and others in the news media stop excluding Arab Americans from the public debate. The basic argument is that excluding mainstream Arab Americans from the mainstream media only feeds the extremism and results in terrorism. The media bias in this country pushes an entire community to the edge and from among that entire community, the extremists come in and harvest a handful to become suicide bombers, terrorists and killers. Is that our fault as Arab Americans or is it also the fault of the American people who sit back and respond with apathy as the news media routinely slanders, disparages and insults Arab Americans and denies them a voice on their op-ed pages.
Ray Hanania www.ArabWritersGroup.com