-Caveat Lector-
http://www.reason.com/0212/fe.tc.e.shtml
E Pluribus Umbrage
The long, happy life of America's anti-defamation industry.
By Tim Cavanaugh
The sexual abuse scandal of 2002 is arguably the gravest crisis in the
history of the American Catholic Church. Sexual dysfunction, hypocrisy,
institutional self-regard, Soviet-style secrecy, pathological hostility to
plain dealing -- even the infamous 19th-century nativist fable The Awful
Disclosures of Maria Monk couldn't support so many anti-Catholic
stereotypes.
In the midst of this emergency, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil
Rights, the nation's most prominent Catholic advocacy organization, alerted
its 300,000 members to a grave threat to the faith: a King of the Hill
episode in which cartoon housewife Peggy Hill impersonates a nun. Even for
the perpetually outraged Catholic League, this was minor stuff. But it's the
kind of distorted controversy found in a strange and often lucrative segment
of the political economy.
Call it the anti-defamation industry, the anti-discrimination lobby, or
maybe the umbrage market. From politically connected lobbying behemoths to
one-man shoestring operations using a Kinko's fax machine, the United States
hosts a Mad Monster Party of advocacy groups dedicated to rebutting every
real and imagined racial or ethnic slur. It's a field that attracts the
talented and the warped, passionate crusaders and transparent
self-promoters. It creates media stars and villains.
And if the nit-picking interest group has become a cliché,
anti-discrimination's capacity for driving legal and legislative agendas is
no joke. Pandering to imagined Hibernian hypersensitivities has already
resulted in the construction of an Irish Hunger Memorial on prime real
estate in New York City's Battery Park and a gratuitous curriculum
requirement that Empire State public schools teach the Irish famine as an
attempted genocide by the British government. The Anti-Defamation League
(ADL) of B'nai B'rith boasts that its model hate crimes legislation has
inspired actual laws in Wisconsin and elsewhere. One of President Bush's
first initiatives after the September 11 attacks was to get a series of
photo ops with representatives of Arab and Muslim anti-discrimination
groups.
It's hard to place a valuation on the anti-discrimination industry. The
89-year-old Anti-Defamation League is the trailblazer, with an annual take
of more than $40 million and a $400,000 salary for storied director Abraham
Foxman. The National Council of La Raza rakes in a cool $16 million per
year, a combination of government grants, public support, and other
revenues. The Polish American Congress pulls down more than $5 million --
despite its leader's habit of making wildly impolitic public statements
(more on this later). The venerable Sons of Italy runs a nearly $200,000
Commission for Social Justice.
Tactics pioneered by the Anti-Defamation League are used by
anti-discrimination groups that butt heads with the ADL itself. The
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee budgets "in the area of a
million dollars," according to an official, as does James Zogby's Arab
American Institute. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
describes its budget as between $2 million and $4 million. The Rev. Jesse
Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition famously declines to disclose its finances
at all.
All Against All
The number of unincorporated one- or two-person social justice advocacy
operations out there is beyond count. If you've noticed an absence of "No
Latvians Need Apply" notices at local businesses, you can thank either the
Latvian Truth Fund, which defends "the legal and civil rights of persons
born in Latvia or of Latvian descent," or the American Latvian Association,
which "defends the interests of Latvian Americans." There are
Indian-American groups combating misrepresentations of Ganesha,
Italian-American committees who condemn Mickey Blue Eyes, and Irish
organizations bent on eliminating Barry Fitzgerald-style stereotypes.
Funny though they may be, such groups turn honest (or dishonest) differences
into pseudo-crusades and portray an America that, contrary to abundant
evidence, has made no progress against the bigotries of the past. "These
groups serve a vital function," says Robert Alan Goldberg, a University of
Utah history professor and author of Enemies Within, a study of conspiracy
theories in America, "but somebody has to sound the fire bell when they pour
gasoline on the fire and get into thrust and counterthrust with other
groups."
Virtually all anti-discriminationists describe themselves as opponents of
bigotry in all its forms. But despite some areas of agreement, such as
support for "hate crimes" legislation, the anti-discrimination industry is
the Hobbesian nightmare in a nonprofit setting. Arab and Muslim groups
struggle with the ADL for mind share in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The
Serbian Orthodox Church combats not only anti-Serb stereotypes in the
entertainment industry but also the Hague War Crimes Tribunal and the de
facto pro-Croat teachings of Our Lady of Medjugorje. The Polish American
Congress alienates the Jewish community in Chicago. Italian Americans battle
American Indians every Columbus Day.
Advocacy groups also come into conflict with people they putatively
represent. The Anti-Defamation League is frequently criticized by liberal
Jews. A recent Sports Illustrated poll suggested most Native Americans
tolerate or even support the Indian team nicknames advocacy groups have
fought for many years. William Donohue, president of the Catholic League,
battles his own church's liberals. Many or most Italian Americans regard
Mafia films as, at worst, too abstracted from reality to cause much alarm.
Nevertheless, institutional logic demands eternal vigilance. "Simply said,
there are careers, status, jobs and influence to be had as long as racism
exists," writes Laird Wilcox in his 1998 book The Watchdogs, which details
incidents of strong-arm tactics by anti-discrimination groups. An
anti-discrimination group has little motive to report improvement, or even
stasis, in cultural relations, because that would lessen the perceived need
for the group.
Nor is there incentive to declare victory and go home, even when victory
clearly has been won. The Polish American Congress is still operating
decades after Mike Stivic endured his last Polish joke on All in the Family.
Both the ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal Center are famous for fund raising
letters warning of what the ADL calls "a rising tide of anti-Semitism here
and around the world" and the Wiesenthal Center describes as "a frightening
new wave of antisemitism and extremism -- often mixed with Holocaust
denial." The Catholic League's Donohue defines anti-Catholicism as the
"anti-Semitism of the elites" and asserts "there is a contempt for
Christianity among our elites in this country that has no rival."
If this perpetually rising tide is troubling, it's useful in forming
cultural identity, particularly where such identity is fading or never
existed in the first place. Asian Americans of all backgrounds now attach
themselves to the World War II-era internment of Japanese Americans. Large
numbers of Irish Americans dwell on the relatively mild bigotry their
ancestors endured two presidents and countless CEOs ago. "It's easy to pick
on the Irish, since we're easily dismissed as a minority or ethnic grouping
of no particular significance," writes the Richmond Times Dispatch's Tom
Mullen. "You can say what you like about the Irish -- especially Irish
Catholics -- but woe be unto you if you say anything critical about
African-Americans or gays or any other group that has suffered from any kind
of bigotry."
Even if we concede that historical suffering of a group confers political
coherence on that group's descendents, few anti-discrimination groups have
the serious historical roots of, say, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People or the American Indian Movement.
Self-described ethnic groups whose experience of America has been almost
entirely positive can get into the act. Don't talk to me about slavery; my
ancestors were traumatized by The Katzenjammer Kids! This may explain why
anti-discrimination is a growth industry even -- or especially -- while
identity politics fades into history, more Americans decline to identify
themselves by ethnicity, and actual discrimination is, by virtually all
measures, at historically low levels.
Toilet Trouble
"We are not humorless," says Ajay Shah. "There are things that are clearly
humorous, and you have to be willing to take a joke." Shah, convener of
American Hindus Against Defamation (AHAD), is speaking of Apu, the Indian
Quik-E-Mart owner on The Simpsons. Shah occasionally has been called upon to
object to this characterization of a penny-pinching subcontinental; he sees
Apu as a creation more of affection than calumny. "I get two or three
incidents reported every month," he says. "You have to make a judgment
whether it's worth pursuing or just trivial."
In the anti-discrimination economy, AHAD is a penny stock, with no paid
staff, office, or telephone. AHAD convenes on a case-by-case basis. Its
targets have included an Aerosmith album cover depicting a disfigured
Krishna, Sanskrit shlokas in an orgy scene in the movie Eyes Wide Shut, and,
most famously, a Seattle design shop selling toilet covers with pictures of
Ganesha and Kali. In all these cases, AHAD's strategy of engagement with
offenders, backed up by e-mail campaigns and the hint of boycotts, resulted
in removal of the offending images.
"In all of our protests we have never asked for monetary compensation," says
Shah, "because if we can educate people, we'll become a major organization
whom they'll come to before they start a project."
AHAD has come under fire from both left and right. In a screed for the
Indian Web site Rediff.com, writer Varsha Bhosle attacks Shah's "ingrained
Hindu obsequiousness," which allowed the Seattle designer to escape "without
a scratch." In Bhosle's view, AHAD is a lily-livered Gandhian group that
deserves "a nice Islamic-style whipping."
Liberals, on the other hand, condemn AHAD's affiliations with both the
million-dollar advocacy outfit Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America, which has
ties to India's ruling BJP party, and the nationalist group Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh, whose mission includes "strengthening the [Hindu] society
by emphasizing and inculcating a spirit of unity, so that no one can dare
challenge it." Both groups supported the demolition of the Ayodha mosque and
say attacks on Christian missionaries result from "anger of patriotic Hindu
youth against anti-national forces."
"The issues we pick have no political overtones," counters Shah. "We take up
issues offensive to Hindus...once people denigrate your symbols, it's a
matter of time before they say, 'If people worship these symbols, they're
worth ridiculing.'" Shah notes that his group participates in pluralism
efforts and meets with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "Hindus
are very liberal," he says. "We see nothing wrong with people choosing their
own lifestyles. If there is a libertarian religion, it's Hinduism."
Upping the Anti
This easygoing spirit is a rarity among anti-discrimination groups. "The
issue," Wilcox writes in The Watchdogs, "is the abominable record...with
respect to individual rights...misrepresentations and lies, exploitation of
normal human sympathy for the underdog, flagrant double standards, hidden
agendas, unprincipled methods, and unconscionable use of law enforcement to
advance their own ends."
Not surprisingly, the 9/11 attacks pushed these tendencies to the forefront
while giving urgency to anti-discrimination efforts. CAIR tallies
anti-Muslim incidents, which it says tripled in the last year. The group
issues news alerts with headlines that are witty ("Ann Coulter Attacks,
Dates Muslims"), breathless ("House Leader Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of
Palestinians"), or mendacious ("First Lady Says She Can't Empathize With
Palestinian Mothers").
The post-9/11 backlash, the Afghan war, endless intifadas, and the Bush
administration's hysterical terrorist threat warnings have inspired an
unbroken string of columns, speeches, and television appearances from CAIR,
the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), and the Arab American
Institute (AAI). The rising profile of these groups never goes unchallenged.
The ADL's Foxman, who accuses the AAI's Zogby of "crude anti-Semitism,"
campaigned to get Zogby's son ousted from a position in the Clinton State
Department. Leaders of other Arab and Muslim groups have been subject to
similar attacks.
"They're saying don't let me on television because I'm bad," says ADC
spokesman Hussein Ibish. "Pipes and Emerson rehash a version of
anti-Semitism: 'There is a plot out there to destroy our Christian way of
life; they may look like us, but they worship a hostile and alien god.' This
is political anti-Semitism, recast against another Semitic group to exclude
that group from the political process."
Ibish is referring to Middle East expert Daniel Pipes, head of the Middle
East Forum, and Steven Emerson, self-dramatizing MSNBC terrorism expert. The
dustup between Pipes and his Saracen adversaries is one of the oddest
offshoots of the war on terrorism. Pipes has condemned CAIR as "'moderate'
friends of terror." AAI founder Zogby has been the subject of a rant in
Pipes' Middle East Quarterly. Ibish, Pipes writes, is "Anti-American,
anti-Semitic, inaccurate and immoral."
Pipes' Web site carries exposés about CAIR. CAIR shoots back with a special
"Who Is Daniel Pipes?" feature on its own site. Like all pissing contests,
it ends with everybody getting wet. Pipes mass e-mails alerts about his
run-ins with various interlocutors ("Pipes on 'Hardball' -- hits one back to
the pitcher," "Pipes on O'Reilly Factor, dukes it out with host," "Pipes vs.
Zakaria on MSNBC's 'Hardball'"). His enemies are even more energetic. Here
is how Mohammed Alo, a young writer at toledomuslims.com, describes a Pipes
appearance on the defunct talk show Politically Incorrect:
"Host Bill Maher and the other guests quickly argued that Pipes is the one
that needs to be controlled and kept out of the public stage. Even they
noticed his outright hatred and anti-Muslim sentiments. You could faintly
hear an audience member shout out 'Pipe down Pipes!'
"Pipes was humiliated. His plans were foiled once again. Bigotry was on
display, but failed to reign supreme. Hooray for America. Pipes will forever
remain in the garbage bin of history, and rightfully so."
Needless to say, very little of this has to do with fighting discrimination.
"We're a civil rights organization, but much of what we do is devoted to
foreign policy," says Ibish. "Much of the discrimination Arab Americans face
stems from disagreements between Arab Americans and the rest of society over
our policies toward the Middle East. Until we can create a more reasonable
foreign policy, we'll face defamation in the form of films, television,
discrimination in the workplace...I believe this absolutely."
Nevertheless, Arab-American leaders concede that animosity toward their
ethnicity may be less than advertised. "Is there a generalized antagonism?"
says Zogby. "No. Was there a problem immediately after 9/11? Yes...the
country doesn't have much tolerance for hearing Arabs whine. There are
people who try to make politics out of whining. I choose not to be a
professional victim, because I don't think it's true and because people
don't have much tolerance for it."
Victimization politics also holds tactical disadvantages. Anti-Semitism
remains a concept with much more punch than such recently diagnosed maladies
as "Anti-Arabism" or "Islamophobia." Reference to the Holocaust is still
sufficient to shout down any discussion about the plight of Arab Americans.
"I don't think anything in the Arab experience can resonate similarly,
because I don't think anything in the Arab experience is similar," admits
Ibish. "But since we can't counter that emotional appeal honestly, we can
question its relevance to the Arab-Israeli conflict."
Big Trouble in Little Poland
For an odder case of emotional appeal turned into political ordnance,
consider the City of Big Shoulders, where the slow-motion implosion of the
Polish American Congress (PAC) mirrors the political decline of Chicago's
Polish community.
Since 1996 PAC President Edward Moskal has been making statements that can
charitably be called ill-considered. "The spilled blood of those Jews,
however torrential it may have been, cannot wash away the blood of their
Christian neighbors," Moskal wrote in a 1996 article that defended a
commemorative cross at Auschwitz. (Elsewhere in the piece, he averred that
Jews collaborated with Poland's Soviet occupiers.) He dismisses evidence of
Polish collaboration with the Germans as "twisted history," an assault on
Polish sovereignty. Moskal ridicules attempts by Poland's leadership to
offer restitution to Jews and implies Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, generally
considered a resistance hero, was a Nazi collaborator.
Moskal's impatience with talk of Polish guilt is partly understandable.
"[Poles] see themselves as victims, which they were," says Guy Billauer,
director of the National Polish-American-Jewish-American Council, which
broke with PAC in 1996. "They have a right to think that way. But [the
Moskal controversy] has opened our eyes. We believe it's hard to reform
somebody who holds these views. It's like mending fences with Arafat."
"I think people should welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues with
somebody who speaks his mind," counters PAC spokesman T. Ron
Jasinski-Herbert, "rather than saying the right things and thinking all the
bullshit inside." Whatever Moskal's true feelings may be (he did not consent
to an interview for this article), his comments have diminished both
membership and clout for PAC, an umbrella group for 3,000 religious,
fraternal, and political orders.
The situation came to a head during this year's Democratic primary in the
5th Congressional District, which pitted former state legislator Nancy
Kaszak against combative Clinton administration apparatchik Rahm Emanuel.
Because of demographic changes and redistricting in Chicago's 30th Ward, the
Polish-American voting bloc is declining. "We do have a valid gripe," says
Jasinski-Herbert. "If we lose this one we have no more Polish
representatives from the largest Polish community outside Poland."
But it may not have helped when, a few weeks before the election, Moskal
gave Kaszak a contribution and then denounced Emanuel as a "millionaire
carpetbagger" with divided U.S.-Israeli loyalties, accusing Emanuel's Polish
supporters of accepting "30 pieces of silver to betray Polonia." "The
country from which Poles come struggled for democracy," Moskal said. "While
the country...to which [Emanuel] gave his allegiance defiles the Polish
homeland."
Kaszak publicly rejected Moskal's endorsement. Emanuel insisted that Kaszak
go further and order Moskal to "cease and desist." The incident received
wide media play, and in the weeks after Moskal's comments Emanuel closed an
eight-point deficit in polls to win the primary. The loss of Polish-American
political clout turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Celtic Twilight
But what is ethnic cleansing or the Holocaust compared to the scourge of
stage Irishmen? For Ultan O'Broin, founder of San Francisco's Celtic Tiger
Anti-Defamation League, the great issues of the day include Angela's Ashes,
Fighting Fitzgeralds, Darby O'Gill and the Little People, and presumably the
Star Trek episode wherein Kirk beats the stuffing out of an arch-rival
tellingly named Finnegan.
O'Broin, an Irishman working in Silicon Valley, publishes articles
excoriating "Oirish" stereotypes and ridiculing the dumb Americans who fall
for them. "In the last decade, the Republic of Ireland has undergone a sea
change," he writes, noting that "Ireland has the highest per capita
ownership of Mercedes-Benz automobiles in Europe." Yet "stereotyping
continues in the United States." His proposed solution -- one of them,
anyway -- is simple: "Americans (and Irish Americans) need to go to Ireland
to see for themselves. They should protest the negative stereotyping. Then
they might be more than welcome to celebrate what it really means to be
Irish today."
The Celtic Tiger Anti-Defamation League (CTADL) claims to have attracted 150
members, and the group's proposals for anti-stereotype legislation have been
given a sympathetic hearing by San Francisco's mayor and legislators. As
with soccer and Islam, the CTADL's small base alone may qualify it as one of
America's fastest-growing organizations.
But the politics of Hibernian equality are thorny, even among Hibernians.
Consider the sad case of Francis Boyle, a law professor at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Boyle, described by legendary activist Philip
Berrigan as "a lawyer of the quality of Thomas More or Gandhi...the most
competent and impassioned advocate of international law in the U.S.," claims
he experienced discrimination when he objected to the bar crawls graduate
students hold every St. Patrick's Day. "A bar crawl 'in honor' of St.
Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, and one of the great figures of
Western Judeo-Christian Civilization, is completely sacrilegious," he says.
Boyle's objections, he says, made him a target. "It's clearly a hostile work
environment for me," he says. "I've been subject to ridicule by students and
student organizations. This is a hostile environment based on my race -- I'm
of Irish nationality and a citizen of the Irish Republic -- and on my
religion -- I'm Catholic."
Indeed, Boyle claims the harassment got so bad that he complained to the
U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, noting that "it doesn't
cost me anything" to have the government investigate his claims. Yet when
pressed for details, Boyle becomes as vague as Van Morrison lyrics. "I got
nasty e-mails," the professor says, giving no hint of their contents. "They
ridiculed me for being Catholic and ridiculed Catholicism. Two years ago,
they even made a T-shirt ridiculing me." Was this ridicule based on religion
or ethnicity, or do Boyle's students and colleagues just dislike him?
Without examples, it's impossible to say.
It's also hard to see a legal case, given that "Irish" is nowhere recognized
as a racial category. Sacrilege is an even tougher case, since nothing in
Catholic canon law prohibits getting loaded on St. Patrick's Day. Boyle is
having none of this. "My secretary, who has a high school education, and
isn't even Catholic, understands this," he snaps, abruptly ending the
interview.
Perhaps a professor who claims discrimination while offhandedly insulting
his secretary is not the ideal client, but shouldn't Boyle and the Celtic
Tigers be able to find common ground? Alas, the professor's claim to Irish
citizenship is based on Ireland's notorious grandparent loophole -- a
practice to which the Tigers, who loathe Irish Americans, strongly object.
"This citizen stuff is complete nonsense," says CTADL spokesman William
O'Herlihy. "Why not grant American citizenship to anyone in Ireland who has
an American grandchild?" Thus even apparent allies cannot escape the anxiety
of small differences.
Bald Sopranos
The Irish are not the only long-assimilated European im-migrant group that
still has it tough. "I'm a lawyer, but my dad was a shoemaker," says Ted
Grippo, the chatty and amiable founder of Chicago's American-Italian Defense
Association (AIDA). "Since 1930, we've had over 800 Mafia-type movies. I
can't tell you how many times I've been asked if I'm connected." Fed up,
Grippo is taking aim at Tony Soprano and the gang at the Bada-Bing -- who
themselves comically raised the issue of defamation in a recent episode
about Columbus Day protests organized by Native Americans.
Grippo's familiarity with HBO's hit series would surprise the show's most
ardent fans. "In The Sopranos, there are two groups of Italians: the mob
guys and the other people. Of that second group -- Dr. Cusamano, the parish
priest, the restaurant owner, the kids, the wife, Dr. Melfi -- they're all a
bunch of slobs. Compare that to when Carmela met the Jewish psychiatrist or
the African priest. Both of them were noble people, full of conscientious
advice." As Grippo describes the subtlest details of Sopranos plots, you
suspect he may be a secret fan, but the show's ethnic dynamic trumps
everything for him.
Last year, Grippo brought legal action against Time Warner, citing a clause
in the Illinois constitution that condemns "communications that portray
criminality, depravity or lack of virtue in...a person or group of persons
by reference to religious, racial, ethnic, national or regional
affiliation." While the suit was dismissed, AIDA attracted 160 members.
Grippo expects to have 200 or 300 members "pretty quickly. We're edging
toward a paid staff. Within the next year we'll have some permanent staff."
Italian-American anti-discrimination has a long pedigree and one great
event: the rise of Joe Colombo's Italian-American Civil Rights League
(IACRL). Colombo, who gave his name to the reputed "Colombo Crime Family,"
formed the group in 1970, after son Joe Jr. was charged with melting down
$500,000 in U.S. coins for their silver content. Within a year the IACRL
attracted 100,000 members, boasting a multimillion-dollar budget and a
five-room office suite on Madison Avenue. Pop culture Goliaths such as
Alka-Seltzer's "Mamma mia, datsa somma spicy meat-a-balls" slogan and Macy's
"Godfather Game" fell to the group's wrath. New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller
and U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell attended a "Unity Day Rally" at
Columbus Circle. Thanks to the IACRL, the terms Mafia and Cosa Nostra are
never uttered in the film version of The Godfather. Colombo's vision grew to
include an IACRL-run hospital and rehab center and Camp Unity, a 250-acre
retreat for underprivileged kids. In early 1971 he attained that benchmark
of Nixon-era success, an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show.
The dream ended just as quickly after Colombo was fatally shot at the second
Unity Day Rally in 1971; the league did not outlive him. Mob fans speculate
the assassination was ordered by either Colombo rival Joe Gallo or boss
Carlo Gambino, who feared the league's potential for drawing attention to
discreet Gambino activities.
Richard Capozzola, a retired Florida high school teacher who worked for the
IACRL, disputes both theories. "In the two years I was with the League, I
worked closely with Joe; I never saw any criminal actions or heard so much
as a profanity," he says. "There is no other group that has a label pinned
to its people...Michael Milken, Marc Rich, Allie Tannenbaum, Crazy Eddie
Antar -- those were all criminals. But if you want to get your backside
kicked, write about them and call them the Kosher Nostra."
At his site ItalianInfo.net, Capozzola publishes a 3,000-word essay
defending the legacy of Colombo and the IACRL (whose "accomplishments
overshadowed what all national Italian American organizations had tried to
do for over SIXTY YEARS"). He speculates that Colombo's assassination was
ordered by the government as part of its long-term project to denigrate
Italian Americans. "The assassination of Joe Colombo, in my view, was a
capstone to the unjust and unethical treatment that Italian Americans are
subject to in everyday life."
Capozzola still speaks out against "Uncle Tomassos" like Joe Pesci, Paul
Sorvino, and Sopranos creator David Chase. "I love my country, but I sure
don't love Hollywood," he says. His hope is that there might someday be an
organization that weeds out anti-Italian slurs as assertively as the
Anti-Defamation League obliterates anti-Semitism.
Hate for Sale
Anti-discrimination efforts do not occur in a vacuum. Even hypochondriacs
get sick, and the anti-discrimination lobby exists in part because real
discrimination exists. If the ADL's picture of an anti-Semitic Arab lobby is
vivid, that's because pro-Arab sentiments frequently do slide into hoary
anti-Jewish tropes, a fact the more honest Arab advocates, such as the ADC's
Ibish, acknowledge.
To the surprise (if not disappointment) of Arab-American advocates, the
post-9/11 backlash against Arabs and Muslims was more scattered and
restrained than ubiquitous talk about internment camps and midnight roundups
had led us to expect. But it would take a true Pollyanna to dismiss the
troubles of Muslims in America when citizen and non-citizen alike are being
deprived of such fancy Western niceties as the right to legal counsel.
Moreover, hate crime is often real crime. American Hindus Against Defamation
is part of a political awakening that followed the murder of 30-year-old
Navroze Mody by the Jersey City "Dotbusters" gang; agitation from the Indian
community clearly helped push that case to a successful prosecution. (On the
other hand, prominent civil rights advocate Helen Zia formed American
Citizens for Justice after the murder at a strip club of 27-year-old Vincent
Chin in 1982 -- a crime now widely described as a racially motivated
killing, though the circumstances are murkier than advocates admit.)
But does a crime become worse because it's a hate crime? Are Americans too
dumb to recognize bigotry unless a professional identifies it? Do
anti-discrimination organizations actually make any difference?
Anti-discrimination groups are untroubled by such airy-fairy questions.
Virtually all support broader federal hate crime laws. Ted Grippo's lawsuit
against The Sopranos is amusing but not uncommon. Even the Celtic Tiger ADL,
which seems at first like a Swiftian hoax, is dead serious about expansive
hate crime laws.
"We would like to see local legislation or guidelines enacted to prevent
negative stereotyping in the local media and at officially sanctioned events
or by anyone in receipt of public contracts," says CTADL spokesman
O'Herlihy. "If 24 Hour Fitness can draw the wrath of the oversized persons
lobby...then I don't see why those that are offended by the negative
stereotyping of their culture shouldn't be given serious thought too."
Nonlegislative strong-arming is even more common. The Anti-Defamation League
of B'nai B'rith pressures Internet service providers that don't police
bulletin boards and libraries that display objectionable books. It once
attempted to ban a textbook that "[leaned] over backward to provide a
flattering portrait of Islamic civilization."
Laird Wilcox, a civil rights activist who fell out with ADL while
researching fringe groups, devotes more than a quarter of The Watchdogs to
ADL abuses. Among other things, he claims a documentary he worked on in the
1980s was faked by ADL staffers posing, with fake names and mustaches, as
white supremacists.
The ADL's public record is daunting enough. In 1993 the group was fined for
employing an off-duty San Francisco police officer to spy on other civil
rights groups. Last year the ADL was fined nearly $10 million for defaming a
Colorado couple with baseless charges of anti-Semitism. The organization
defends its copyright on the word anti-defamation, taking action against
groups such as the Anarchists Anti-Defamation League and Russell Means'
American Indian Anti-Defamation Council.
Other civil rights groups, Wilcox contends, might behave similarly with a
$40 million budget. "They're not hesitant to suppress free speech when they
don't agree with it," he says, "but on the whole they're no worse and
probably better than the ADL."
A League of Their Own
The endearing thing about Bill Donohue is that he genuinely seems to enjoy
hurting people. The president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil
Rights peppers his press releases with blistering jabs at luminaries who
stumble into anti-Catholic offense: "LARA FLYNN BOYLE ADMITS TO HER
STUPIDITY...HEATHER GRAHAM'S SEXUAL HANG-UPS...Yo, Sly, ever think about
getting out of the ring once and for all?" (The last is a reference to
Sylvester Stallone's canceled series Father Lefty.)
Donohue specializes in invidious comparisons of the "If they said the same
thing about blacks/Jews..." type. Some samples:
"Sadly, there is also a market for Jew-bashing cards. Millions of people
hate gays. Ditto for Muslims. White racists abound. But there are no cards,
thank God, that attack these groups. Just Catholics."
"If a group of white anti-black bigots dressed up as Al Jolson and mocked
African Americans, no one would excuse them...."
"For starters, would [the Brooklyn Museum of Art] include a photograph of
Jewish slave masters sodomizing their obsequious black slaves?"
In an interview for this story, Donohue is energetic, engaging, and
unapologetic about his aggressive personal style. "We're not located in
Kansas City," he says (a dig at the liberal National Catholic Reporter,
which is headquartered there). "New York is a rough town. The people I
debate are smart, quick, and tough. I'm not some pious little bluenose,
backwoods kid."
Invoking the image of sodomite Jewish slave masters is, in Donohue's view,
fair play. "Why is that an invidious comparison?" he says. "Why isn't it
analogous? I want a level playing field."
The Catholic League was formed in 1973 and turned over to Donohue's
leadership 20 years later. Donohue's genius was to change the terms of the
discussion, to present the Catholic League not as a socially conservative
group but as the champion of an abused religious sect in a relentlessly
bigoted environment. Everywhere the Catholic League looks -- art museum,
multiplex, TV set -- an abyss of nearly Elizabethan Catholic bashing gazes
back; the league fights back with press releases, letter writing campaigns,
boycott threats, and an annual "Index of Anti-Catholicism."
This strategy invites a good deal of media mockery of the "wait 'til the
Catholic League gets a load of this" variety. "When any other group
complains, they're against discrimination," Donohue says. "When Bill Donohue
leads a protest, it's censorship. He's against free speech." This charge
clearly rankles Donohue, who insists -- against considerable evidence --
that he opposes governmental decency policing. "I don't want the government
to be the agent of resolution," Donohue says. "I'd rather see somebody
bashing my religion than see the government exercising censorship."
This last claim should not be taken at face value. Donohue's opposition to
government intervention is such that when WNEW's Opie and Anthony radio show
staged a live sex act in St. Patrick's Cathedral this August, Donohue's
first action was to file a complaint with the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC), demanding that WNEW's license be revoked. The Catholic
League has in the past filed FCC protests against a San Diego radio station
and a WB Network quiz show; in 1998 Donohue went after the FCC itself, when
a subscriber to the commission's e-mail digest posted "a joke that poked fun
at nuns." As is often the case, government intervention is in the eye of the
beholder.
But these were minor dustups compared to this year's revelations that
Boston's Archdiocese housed a de facto pederasty ring that was protected by
the church hierarchy. Suddenly the Catholic League was in an odd position.
While the rest of the country was talking about child-abusing priests and
their accomplices in the bishopric, the Catholic League was still denouncing
harmless chestnuts about high-strung nuns and wacky confessional mixups.
"When this happened in Boston, I thought carefully, do I want to get
involved in this thing?" says Donohue, who acknowledges having waited out
the early stages of the controversy. "The reason we talk more about it now
is that this thing blew up. And I wanted to have a voice of somebody who
loves the church, who hates the abuse that's going on in the church, and
will oppose the efforts of the left and the right -- especially the left --
to impose an agenda."
Donohue decisively inserted himself into the debate in March, briefly
becoming a ubiquitous presence on talk shows and managing partly to direct
the battle back toward a familiar enemy: Catholic liberals. He has become
one of the major proponents of the thesis that the root of the problem was
excessive tolerance for gays in the priesthood.
This, however, doesn't address a main cause of public outrage: not just that
child abuse occurred but that a self-interested church hierarchy was willing
to act as an accomplice. In April a widely publicized Vatican meeting of
U.S. cardinals produced a lawyerly and mealy-mouthed set of proposals; at a
June meeting, America's bishops, who had already emerged as the villains in
the public mind, produced "zero tolerance" guidelines that made no mention
of their own responsibility. It doesn't take a Catholic basher to be struck
by the fact that a church uniquely confident in its opposition to stem cell
research, condom use, and war in Iraq is somehow unable to take a strong
stand against raping children.
Despite promises that he would not "defend the indefensible" or "carry water
for the church," Donohue inevitably has had to speak carefully about Church
pusillanimity and promise that real reform is on the way. Damage control is
an uncomfortable job for him. In his element, Bill Donohue is a happy
warrior, not an apologist. Witness a telling exchange with James Carville on
CNN's Crossfire:
Donohue: "Most of the damage was done in the 1970s and the early 1980s. The
cultural and sexual revolution that this country went through in the '60s,
'70s, and early '80s had negative consequences all over. I'm not excusing
it. I'm giving you...."
Carville: "I know. But I lived through the cultural revolution. And I didn't
fondle no Boy Scout."
The fight has not gone out of Bill Donohue; he just wasn't born to be
somebody else's straight man. Donohue promises, however, that if and when
the scandal settles down, "I am gonna say to people: 'It's not OK to beat up
on us just because we created our own problems.'"
Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom
One thing you can say for anti-discrimination groups: By their very
existence, they negate the idea of America as a homogeneous, or even
harmonious, society. This alone constitutes a public service. The Council on
American-Islamic Relations, for example, keeps close track of the war on
terrorism's erosion of civil liberties, if only because its constituents are
directly impacted. Between the tyranny of common interest and the tyranny of
special interests, at least you still have the freedom to name your poison.
"We like these groups," says Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Cambridge,
Massachusetts-based Political Research Associates. "It's a good question why
a person who is sensible would like these groups, but it's because we don't
think it's that annoying to ask whether people are being treated fairly --
and to be able to do that without people running into a corner and ignoring
each other. I want people to find a way to speak out in a way that is
civil."
It's hard, though, to see how accusations of bigotry, sniping over political
agendas, or appeals to courts and legislatures help promote civility.
Anti-discrimination groups may in fact be most valuable when they are most
combative, most obdurate, most willing to give up phony abstractions about
equality for all and openly fight each other for crumbs of public attention.
Your meaningless cacophony could be somebody else's Whitmanesque symphony.
It would also be somebody else's highly remunerative business, providing
gainful employment for executives, clerks, and boards of directors. In this
sluggish economy, isn't that enough? Even when there's little to gripe
about, Americans from all walks of life can still come together and
complain. We may be one nation after all.
Tim Cavanaugh is reason's Web editor.
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
