American Hate: Survivors Speak Out

by Arjun Singh Sethi (Editor)

Overview

“Amid the ugly realities of contemporary America, American Hate affirms our courage and inspiration, opening a roadmap to reconciliation by means of the victims' own words.”
—NPR Books

“The collection offers possible solutions for how people, on their own or working with others, can confront hate.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

An NPR Best Book of 2018

A San Francisco Chronicle Books Pick

One of Bitch Media's “13 Books Feminists Should Read in August”

One of Paste Magazine's “The 10 Best Books of August 2018”

A moving and timely collection of testimonials from people impacted by hate before and after the 2016 presidential election

In American Hate: Survivors Speak Out, Arjun Singh Sethi, a community activist and civil rights lawyer, chronicles the stories of individuals affected by hate. In a series of powerful, unfiltered testimonials, survivors tell their stories in their own words and describe how the bigoted rhetoric and policies of the Trump administration have intensified bullying, discrimination, and even violence toward them and their communities.

We hear from the family of Khalid Jabara, who was murdered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in August 2016 by a man who had previously harassed and threatened them because they were Arab American. Sethi brings us the story of Jeanette Vizguerra, an undocumented mother of four who took sanctuary in a Denver church in February 2017 because she feared deportation under Trump's cruel immigration enforcement regime. Sethi interviews Taylor Dumpson, a young black woman who was elected student body president at American University only to find nooses hanging across campus on her first day in office. We hear from many more people impacted by the Trump administration, including Native, black, Arab, Latinx, South Asian, Southeast Asian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, undocumented, refugee, transgender, queer, and people with disabilities.

A necessary book for these times, American Hate explores this tragic moment in U.S. history by empowering survivors whose voices white supremacists and right-wing populist movements have tried to silence. It also provides ideas and practices for resistance that all of us can take to combat hate both now and in the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620973721
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	08/07/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	452 KB

About the Author

Arjun Singh Sethi is a community activist, civil rights lawyer, writer, and law professor based in Washington, DC. He works closely with Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and Sikh communities and advocates for racial justice, equity, and social change at both the local and the national levels. His writing has appeared in CNN Opinion, The Guardian, Politico magazine, USA Today, and the Washington Post, and he is featured regularly on national radio and television. He holds faculty appointments at Georgetown University Law Center and Vanderbilt University Law School, and presently co-chairs the American Bar Association's National Committee on Homeland Security, Terrorism, and Treatment of Enemy Combatants.
Arjun Singh Sethi is a Sikh American civil and political rights writer, human rights lawyer, and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and Vanderbilt University Law School. He has written for CNN, Al Jazeera, the Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Politico, and the Washington Post and is the author of Open Season: Targets of Hate Crimes Speak Out (The New Press). He lives in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Introduction: American Hate 1

1 Asmaa Albukaie 15

2 Taylor Dumpson 25

3 Haifa, Victoria, and Rami Jabara 35

4 Jeanette Vizguerra 53

5 Alexandra Brodsky 63

6 Sarath Suong 71

7 Mar wan Kreidie and Shahid Hashmi 81

8 Tanya Gersh 97

9 Harjit Kaur 107

10 Destinee Mangum and Walia Mohamed 115

11 Dominick Evans 123

12 Khalid Abu Dawas 131

13 Ruth Hopkins 141

Conclusion: Hope in a Time of Despair 151

Acknowledgments 177

Notes 181

Editorial Reviews

08/01/2018
The recent U.S. political climate has often neglected the voices of immigrants who are impacted by current changes to public policy. Community activist and civil rights lawyer Sethi highlights some of the stories of immigrant victims of hate-related crimes that have surfaced as the potential result of current rhetoric in transcribed interviews in which each survivor had authority over the final edited result. The collection presents the pain and struggle these individuals endure but also their resilience in the face of adversity. Many are being targeted because of their race or religion; Sethi argues in the introduction that the United States has a history of hate as a means of control, starting with the Native peoples being displaced by Europeans. Further, there's been an emphasis on the separation of races throughout history, from slavery to the more recent Japanese American internment camps during World War II. The idea of equality under the law and freedom from harm are questioned through the individual accounts, creating a great companion to Deepa Iyer's We Too Sing America. VERDICT Recommended for anyone interested in immigrant rights.—Gary Medina, El Camino Coll., Torrance, CA

Library Journal

05/28/2018
Human rights lawyer Sethi brings together 13 stories of “people whose lives have been impacted by hate” during and after the American presidential election of 2016 in this affecting anthology. Avid followers of the news are likely to be familiar with some of these cases, such as that of Taylor Dumpson, an African-American university student whose election as student government president was met with displays of nooses and bananas, and of Tanya Gersh, a Jewish businesswoman whose contact information was published by neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, spurring a storm of harassment and threats, and rumors of an armed march against the presence of Jews in her town. Other testimonies include those of black teenagers Destinee Mangum and Walia Mohamed, who survived a white supremacist’s deadly attack on a commuter train, and Native American attorney Ruth Hopkins, who participated in the oil pipeline resistance movement on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation and experienced firsthand the violence with which law enforcement treated unarmed protestors. This book makes for troublesome reading, as many of the subjects report that their situations have become more difficult in the past two years—like Syrian refugee Asmaa Albukaie, who found a welcoming community in Idaho in 2014, but now fears for her and her children’s safety because “this country is changing” under Trump—but Sethi ends on a tentatively optimistic note about finding ways to resist hate. This angry yet hopeful work is an important document of what the United States looks like to “the most vulnerable” among its people in 2018. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for American Hate:
An NPR Best Book of 2018

“American Hate is a compelling collection of testimonies from survivors of hate violence. . . and provides a tool that can empower communities to fight back.”
—Colorlines

“The collection offers possible solutions for how people, on their own or working with others, can confront hate.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“We all should weep that American Hate must even exist. But we cannot ignore it; it should be required reading for schools, for workplaces, for anyone and everyone. . . it is powerful, it is crucial, and we must act to ensure it never needs to be written again.”
—Paste

“Amid the ugly realities of contemporary America, American Hate affirms our courage and inspiration, opening a roadmap to reconciliation by means of the victims' own words.”
—NPR Books

“This angry yet hopeful work is an important document of what the United States looks like to ‘the most vulnerable' among its people in 2018.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Firsthand reports on hate crime and its victims in the age of Trump . . . for those aiming to combat latter-day bigotry, with its many targets and manifestations.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Arjun Singh Sethi lifts up those who have been victimized by the hate unleashed by Donald Trump. These stories of intimidation and brutality help us understand that each hate crime is an event that devastates individual lives, terrorizes communities, and tears at the social fabric of America. These are warning signs that we ignore at our own peril.”
—Richard Cohen, executive director of the Southern Poverty Law Center

“Arjun Singh Sethi takes us to the frontlines of today's American backlash in this searing collection of powerful narratives about hate. American Hate is both a stark reminder of the devastating effects of hate violence and anti-immigrant policies, and an inspiring and hopeful call to action.”
—Deepa Iyer, author of We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future

“An immensely powerful book. Every testimonial reveals the worst in humanity and the best. Read these stories and join the fight to reclaim America.”
—Rachel Bloom, actor and activist

“In this powerful, searing, and impassioned book, renowned scholar and civil rights attorney Arjun Singh Sethi reveals a side of America most Americans do not know, sharing the voices of those who have been hurt the most in the wake of widespread hatred across the nation, which is now being reflected in the highest levels of government. Sethi also shows us that unless America comes to grips with its ethnic and religious hatreds, more serious crises lie ahead. Thankfully, he lights the way to a more compassionate and united America.”
—Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University, Washington, DC, and author of Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity

“It's one thing to talk about the sudden rise of hate in Trump's America. It's something else to read the stories of those whose lives have been affected by hate, and, in some cases, devastated by it. By chronicling these personal accounts, Arjun Singh Sethi has done something remarkable and necessary. He has given pain and grief a human face.”
—Reza Aslan, author of Zealot and God: A Human History

“Arjun Singh Sethi unravels the many layers of hate in this country. He reveals, through personal narratives, the intense misogyny, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, and racism that so many are experiencing and reminds us that they are deeply connected and fueling harmful policies. But the stories also provide the promise of love, community, and empathy over hate. You will finish this book inspired and ready to resist hate and violence.”
—Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO, National Women's Law Center

“This is a heart-wrenching, heart-breaking, powerful book. In the journey toward equality, awareness and understanding are vital. Arjun Sethi gives us the stories of survivors in their own words, providing a shocking window into hate in present-day America. This book shares the intimate details that we don’t get from news reports. These survivors have been brave enough to share their stories; we need to be brave enough to listen.”
—Piper Perabo, actor and activist

From the Publisher

2018-05-23
Firsthand reports on hate crime and its victims in the age of Trump.Why does the sitting president not use his bully pulpit to denounce anti-Semitism, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and so forth? Because, insists civil rights lawyer and commentator Sethi (Georgetown Univ. Law Center), "he is a racist and a sexist, and his ideologies are white supremacy and greed." Even if you don't share that sentiment, it's hard to dismiss Sethi's belief that hate crime—motivated by the wish to do harm to people who are somehow different from the mainstream—is markedly on the rise. However, that belief often lacks hard evidence to back it. Although the FBI collects data on the incidence of hate crime, "their figures are grossly incomplete," in part because reporting from local police agencies is voluntary and one person's hate crime may be another's exercise of First Amendment rights. Consequently, violations go underreported or unreported, which this collection of testimonials aims to redress by validating the reality of those crimes and the great harm they do. Student government activist Taylor Dumpson, for instance, writes of the racist threats and subsequent trauma that resulted from her having been elected student president as an African-American at American University. "We need to lean into discomfort," she writes, "because nothing happens when we're comfortable." A Christian Lebanese-American in Tulsa recounts a series of violent assaults on the part of a neighbor who assumed her family was Muslim and who received the equivalent of a slap on the hand for his misdeeds: "They sent him back home, next door to the family he terrorized." Many of the speakers in these pages locate hate crime in a pattern of fear at the loss of white privilege, about which Sethi sensibly notes, "these Americans have to…understand that the projects of justice and equity are not assaults on their racial identity."A useful book for those aiming to combat latter-day bigotry, with its many targets and manifestations.

Kirkus Reviews