{"id":4681,"date":"2021-02-01T18:59:10","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T22:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/?p=4681"},"modified":"2021-02-01T18:59:10","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T22:59:10","slug":"when-no-news-is-good-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/when-no-news-is-good-news\/","title":{"rendered":"When No News is Good News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. James J. Zogby<\/a>
\nPresident Arab American Institute<\/span><\/em>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are times when no news is, in fact, big news. This is an article about a recent example that proves the wisdom of this maxim. But first, a bit of history.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Back in 1984, I was serving as a deputy campaign manager for the Jesse Jackson for President campaign. The Arab American community had become energized by Jackson and they were hosting fundraising events for him in cities across the country. Late in the campaign, I met up with Jackson in Los Angeles. He had just arrived from a visit to San Diego where, among other engagements, he had attended a gathering of Arab Americans\u00a0who had\u00a0raised funds for his presidential campaign.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When we got together in LA, Jackson with his wry humor said to me, \u201cLooks like your folks have crossed a threshold. They\u2019re making it in American politics. We did a fund-raising event in San Diego and the press didn\u2019t cover it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He was pointing out that from the beginning of the campaign until that event every time the Arab\u00a0American\u00a0community had raised money there had been negative press stories about \u201cJackson goes to the Arabs,\u201d or concerns raised by some local American Jewish leaders about the possible \u201cimpact of Arab money\u201d on Jackson\u2019s views. He interpreted the fact that there was no press coverage for the San Diego event as progress and possibly acceptance that Arab Americans were just another group of ethnic Americans claiming their rightful role at the political table. (A historical note: while Jackson\u2019s observation was correct, it was unfortunately premature. \u201cArab-baiting\u201d remained a problem for several more years. Thankfully, it is now largely in our past.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I thought of Jackson\u2019s words this morning while speaking with two reporters for major Arab\u00a0world dailies. They had each called to ask about White House and State Department press releases announcing a few rather significant Arab American appointments in the Biden Administration. One of the journalists simply asked for my reaction to these appointments, while the other wondered why this story hadn\u2019t received more coverage.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My response was like Jackson\u2019s, \u201cWhen an Arab American getting appointed to a national security post isn\u2019t a story anymore, it looks like we crossed a threshold.\u201d I also borrowed from Martin Luther King\u2019s \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech in which he said that he looked forward to the day when<\/span> one<\/span>\u00a0would be judged by the \u201ccontent of his character and not the color of his skin.\u201d Having spent years seeing Arab Americans excluded from political appointments dealing with critical Middle East issues, it is heartening to see competent Arab Americans being judged by their skills and experience and not excluded because of their ethnic background.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The fact that a few of the appointees are of Palestinian descent has, of course, been noted by fringe rightwing publications and a few predictably hardline\u00a0members of Congress. But the support these Arab American appointees have received from their colleagues has drowned out the nonsense coming from the anti-Arab haters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As someone who has lived through decades of discrimination in which Arab Americans were fired from jobs because of their ethnicity or their support for Palestinian rights or had contributions rejected or returned because candidates feared a backlash from appearing to be \u201ctoo close to the Arabs\u201d \u2013 I hope you\u2019ll excuse me for feeling good about where we are today.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Across the US today, in communities where just four decades ago Arab Americans were having difficulty becoming established and respected, members of the community are serving as Mayors and other elected positions. On every level, from federal, state, and local, office holders and candidates regularly seek out Arab Americans for financial and political support, and\u00a0<\/span>policy expertise<\/span>.\u00a0And this year, the Biden campaign had an unprecedented number of Arab Americans on staff, organized a number of high-level meetings with the community, and issued a first-ever position paper of commitments to the Arab American community on a range of domestic and foreign policy concerns. And all of this occurred without any press coverage or backlash.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, I\u2019m not surprised that the number of great Arab American appointments in the Biden Administration have been greeted as ho-hum by the national media. In fact, I see it as good news that there is no news. We\u2019ve crossed a threshold. And that\u2019s a big story in and of itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. James J. Zogby President Arab American Institute There are times when no news is, in fact, big news. This is an article about a recent example that proves the wisdom of this maxim. But first, a bit of history.   Back in 1984, I was serving as a deputy campaign manager for the Jesse […]","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4682,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4681\/revisions\/4682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}