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When it comes to helping Arabs, call me Arab, not MENA, 3-18-23, S5E3
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When it comes to helping Arabs, call me Arab, not MENA, 3-18-23, S5E3
March 18, 2023 S5 E3
Ray Hanania gives an impassioned argument on why the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) category will undermine the effort to provide equal rights to Arab Americans.
State Rep. Cyril Nichols introduced a law in 2022 that would recognize Arabs as an MBE (Minority Business Enterprise category) when it comes to received preferential treatment in the award of 25-30 percent of the state's $100 billion in annual contract awards. MBE status has been given to African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians and Women, to ensure that they can compete for the contract set-aside, with the majority of contracts, more than 70 percent, going to mainstream businesses.
Instead, a group of self-serving Arabs have introduced their own bill in response to the Nichols legislationt o grant MBE status to the MENA category, which is mostly non-Arabs from th Middle East and from North Africa including African Americans who already qualify for MBE status now. That bill was given to newly elected State Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, a very good person and legislator who was convinced to sponsor it. MENA is a mistake that will harm Arab Americans.
For ARABS to be helped to overcome the discrimination, bigotry and bias that holds them down the effort must be directed towards helping ARABS. Arabs get NO major contracts from governments today because they are small and have been marginalized by anti-Arab elected officials like former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and anti-Muslim Governor J.B. Pritzker. The MENA catogory will further enslave Arabs to the existing anti-Arab system and even undermine support Arabs have received from African American leaders, who are are closest and most generous natural allies.
You can read more about the issue after the podcast by clicking this link an reading my column on the topic, or by visiting TheArabDailyNews.com or Hanania.com.
Also, sign up for Ray Hanania's FREE eNewsletter on Arab American issues by clicking this link.
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