American Forum

AMERICAN FORUM

By Talat Hamdani

As a proud New Yorker and the mother of a first responder who lost his life on September 11, 2001, I am saddened to learn that Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is planning on holding congressional hearings on March 10 on the "radicalization of American Muslims."

My son Mohammed Salman Hamdani was a 23-year-old paramedic, a New York City police cadet and a Muslim American. He was one of those brave 2,976 people who tragically lost their lives in the 9/11 terrorist attacks almost a decade ago. As The New York Times eulogized, "He wanted to be seen as an all-American kid. He wore No. 79 on the high school football team in Bayside, Queens, where he lived, and he was called Sal by his friends... He became a research assistant at Rockefeller University and drove an ambulance part-time. One Christmas, he sang in Handel's Messiah in Queens. He saw all the Star Wars movies, and it was well known that his new Honda was the one with "Yung Jedi" license plates."

Even though my son bravely sacrificed his life to try and help others on that fateful day, after the tragedy there were still some people who smeared his character solely because of his Islamic faith. False rumors were spread that he was in league with the attackers and that he had secretly fled. It was only when his remains were identified that this ugliness finally came to a close.


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Arvonne Fraser

MINNESOTA EDITIORIAL FORUM

By Arvonne Fraser and Aviva Breen

Should Esther, the city clerk in Lake Wobegon, be paid $250 a month less than Joe who shovels the sidewalk and sweeps the floor in city hall? That was the kind of hypothetical question posed when the Minnesota Legislature passed the Local Government Pay Equity Act in 1984. Never mind that the fictional Esther was a widow, taking care of an aged mother, while Joe, the maintenance man, was single and a cousin of the mayor. That was just life. Everybody in town was glad Esther had a job. In those days only the town banker and city council members knew who got paid what.

Twenty-six years later, thanks to the pay equity bill, picture Jolene, now the town's clerk who makes just a bit more than her husband, Brian, who plows the town's streets in winter as a maintenance man. Together they support their three children, pay their property taxes, and are saving to help their kids through college. They are pleased that Aunt Esther's social security is better than it would have been because under the law her pay was adjusted.

Now, there are efforts to repeal this pay equity law. In December, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce issued a report saying the legislation is too costly and no longer necessary. Some state legislators agreed and have introduced proposals for repeal. Apparently they agree that a penny saved is a penny earned, but where's their sense of proportion when the state's deficit is in the billions of dollars?


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Riane Eisler

AMERICAN FORUM

By Riane Eisler and Kimberly Otis

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia just asserted for a second time that our Constitution does not protect women against discrimination. That was one of the arguments for passing the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)., and ironically, people of Scalia’s “conservative” persuasion often countered that the ERA was not needed precisely because women are already protected by the 14th Amendment.

Kimberley Otis

Indeed, many Supreme Court cases have invoked the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to strike down laws that blatantly discriminate on the basis of gender. But now we’re told that these cases for four decades were wrong because the Constitution was never intended to protect women. And that’s true if we only look at original intent. The focus of the framers of the Constitution was to protect the life, liberty, and property of white men who owned substantial property. And the focus of the 14th Amendment was implicitly on African-American males.

Of course, the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause uses the term “person,” and in this 21st century it’s bizarre that a jurist would think “person” does not include members of the female half of humanity.


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