ADC Shocked and Dismayed by Senator McCain’s Response

posted on: Oct 13, 2008

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is dismayed with comments from Republican Presidential nominee Senator John McCain this past Friday October 10.

ADC has confirmed several media accounts indicating that while campaigning in Minnesota on Friday during a town hall-style political rally, McCain passed the microphone to a woman who said, “I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him and he’s not, he’s not uh… he’s an Arab. He’s not…,” before McCain retook the microphone and replied, “No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign’s all about. He’s not [an Arab].”

ADC National Executive Director Kareem Shora said, “These racist and divisive statements on Arabs are reminiscent of the ignorance of a by-gone era when people questioned the loyalty and patriotism of other American communities such as Japanese and German Americans,” Shora said, “While disagreements over policy matters are expected in such a hotly contested election, using racism, Islamophobia, or anti-Semitism is unacceptable and un-American.

“ADC calls on both Senators McCain and Obama to publicly repudiate the racist assumption that being ‘Arab’ is the same as being un-American, that being ‘Arab’ is the same as being violent, that being ‘Arab’ is the same as being a terrorist, that being ‘Arab’ is the same as being Osama bin Laden.”