Dawud Walid: Agema, Patterson fiascos summon need for GOP internal reform

DawudWalid Leave a Comment

http://blogs.detroitnews.com/politics/2014/01/22/agema-patterson-fiascos-summon-need-gop-internal-reform/

JAN 22, 2014, 2:00 PM 

Dawud Walid: Agema, Patterson fiascos summon need for GOP internal reform

The recent fiascos pertaining to racist discourse from Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema and Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson highlight the need for the GOP to systematically encourage diversity and robustly eschew race politics as a top priority for its own survival.

Republican U.S. Representatives Candice Miller, Fred Upton and Justin Amash have called for Agema to resign his position in part to his most recent anti-Muslim comments.

Michigan Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville has been even more firm by saying that Agema should be kicked out. That Agema was elected to his post without major uproar within the GOP, given his controversial history as a state representative of making false claims that Dearborn is infested with “sleeper cells,” his introduction of anti-Islam legislation under the guise of an anti-foreign laws bill, his birtherism and other extremely divisive stances, however, just reflects how soft the GOP has been on bigotry.

Patterson, who also has a history of boorish and divisive rhetoric, has not received the condemnation that Agema has within the GOP for his latest offensive talk. Patterson, however, is just as big of a problem for the Republican Party as a solidifier of the frame that the GOP is the not the party for non-white folks.

Just in case you missed Patterson’s interview in the New Yorker Magazine, he’s quoted as saying:

What we are going to do is turn Detroit into an Indian Reservation, where we herd all the Indians into the city, build a fence around it, and then throw in the blankets and corn.

Given that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed “Our nation was born in genocide” as it relates to Native Americans, Patterson’s comments seem even more racist as we just celebrated MLK Day. Making reference to a majority population which is Black being herded like cattle with ethnic cleansing of Native Americans is one of the most outrageous comments that I’ve seen from an American politician in my lifetime. His words read more like a quote from the infamous 1960s-era Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Bull Connor than a 21st century politician in a northern metropolitan area.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s call for civility in his State of State address and his MLK Day message were nice, but don’t reflect real leadership that the GOP needs in this area. The top Republican in state government needs to call people out by name and make an unequivocal call that the GOP must have an honest internal conversation about the bias too many within it project. Anything less is just playing around and not giving serious attention to eradicating the voices of intolerance within the party.

Many of my colleagues and friends actually agree with aspects of the GOP platform. However, as long as the Republican Party appears to be weak on eradicating racism and discrimination against minorities in general, it will never get a sizable percentage of votes from those who I know.

Given shifting populations demographics, the GOP must change or slide into the realm of unelectability outside of small, White segregated districts in the near future.

 

DawudWalid

Dawud Walid is currently the Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), which is a chapter of America's largest advocacy and civil liberties organization for American Muslims and is a member of the Michigan Muslim Community Council (MMCC) Imams Committee. Walid has been interviewed and quoted in approximately 150 media outlets ranging from the New York Times, Wall St Journal, National Public Radio, CNN, BBC, FOX News and Al-Jazeera. Furthermore, Walid was a political blogger for the Detroit News from January 2014 to January 2016, has had essays published in the 2012 book All-American: 45 American Men on Being Muslim, the 2014 book Qur'an in Conversation and was quoted as an expert in 13 additional books and academic dissertations. He was also a featured character in the 2013 HBO documentary "The Education of Mohammad Hussein." Walid has lectured at over 50 institutions of higher learning about Islam, interfaith dialogue and social justice including at Harvard University, DePaul University and the University of the Virgin Islands - St. Thomas and St. Croix campuses as well as spoken at the 2008 and 2011 Congressional Black Caucus Conventions alongside prominent speakers such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Congressman Keith Ellison. In 2008, Walid delivered the closing benediction at the historic 52nd Michigan Electoral College in the Michigan State Senate chambers and gave the Baccalaureate speech for graduates of the prestigious Cranbrook-Kingswood Academy located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Walid was also a featured speaker at the 2009 and 2010 Malian Peace and Tolerance Conferences at the University of Bamako in Mali, West Africa. He has also given testimony at hearings and briefings in front of Michigan state legislators and U.S. congressional representatives, including speaking before members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington, D.C. Walid has studied under qualified scholars the disciplines of Arabic grammar and morphology, foundations of Islamic jurisprudence, sciences of the exegesis of the Qur’an, and Islamic history during the era of Prophet Muhammad through the governments of the first 5 caliphs. He previously served as an imam at Masjid Wali Muhammad in Detroit and the Bosnian American Islamic Center in Hamtramck, Michigan, and continues to deliver sermons and lectures at Islamic centers across the United States and Canada. Walid was a 2011 - 2012 fellow of the University of Southern California (USC) American Muslim Civil Leadership Institute (AMCLI) and a 2014 - 2015 fellow of the Wayne State Law School Detroit Action Equity Lab (DEAL). Walid served in the United States Navy under honorable conditions earning two United States Navy & Marine Corp Achievement medals while deployed abroad. He has also received awards of recognition from the city councils of Detroit and Hamtramck and from the Mayor of Lansing as well as a number of other religious and community organizations.

More Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *