The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has condemned the most recent column by right-wing commentator Ann Coulter which once again calls for racial profiling of Arab Americans and which attacks Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta in a deeply unfair personal and insulting manner. Coulter’s columns since the attacks of Sept. 11 have been among the most hateful and racist in the country and she seems determined to spread intolerance at any cost.
Coulter expresses regret that the Afghan Transportation Minister was recently killed instead of Secretary Mineta. Coulter claims that “Ethnic profiling is the only reasonable security measure that has been thwarted in the war on terrorism,” in spite of the fact that the kind of crude profiling she is advocating would be illegal and, according to many senior law enforcement and counter-terrorism experts, completely ineffective.
Coulter claims that Sec. Mineta “is given plumb government jobs solely and exclusively because he is a minority,” and has deliberately blocked the racial profiling of Arabs because he secretly hates America. “Transportation Secretary Mineta is angry and he wants America to suffer,” she claims.
“Mineta is burning with hatred for America,” Coulter fumes, and “he’s subjecting all of America to the Bataan Death March!”
ADC President Ziad Asali said, “it is an outrage that any self-respecting journal or website in this country would continue to publish Coutler’s unabashed bigotry and race-baiting. Not content with her endless attacks on Arabs and Muslims, she has now returned to the racism of bygone years by dredging up attacks on the loyalty of Japanese Americans, cabinet secretaries no less, associated with the events of World War II.”
“Ann Coulter should have become a pariah months, if not years ago, due to her open racism,” Asali continued, “and after this latest outrage, no responsible publication or broadcast outlet should welcome her particpation. There simply has to be a limit as to how far a commentator is able to go with impunity in spreading ethnic hatred and intolerance before he or she is repudiated by the responsible press.”
“Secretary Mineta is one of the most respected and responsible members of President Bush’s cabinet and a dedicated public servant,” Asali concluded, “this racial attack on him is beyond irresponsible, it is downright despicable and completely un-American. Universal Press Syndicate should stop distributing her column at once.”
Following Sept. 11, Coulter wrote of the Arab and Muslim worlds that “we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” That went too far even for the National Review Online, which then dropped her as a contributing editor. Coulter has also called for the expulsion of all non-citizens in the United States from “suspect countries,” among numerous other racist policies.
