colleague, senator merkley of oregon, and many other members in urging the president to begin a sizable and sustained reduction in u.s. combat forces from afghanistan this summer. it is time to bring our men and women home. it is my belief that this is the best and most responsible policy for america, a policy that seeks to protect our national security while meeting our fiduciary responsibilities and serving the interests of the service men and women and their families who have sacrificed so much on behalf of a grateful nation. it is time, mr. president, it is time. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor and observe the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: i ask unanimous consent that on tuesday, june 21, when the senate resumes consideration of s. 782, the economic development act, that there be up to ten minutes of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees prior to the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on s. 782. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration of s. res. 141 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report.

the clerk: s. res. 141, recognizing the efforts and accomplishments of the god's child project and congratulating the god's child project on its 20th anniversary. the presiding officer: is there an objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. menendez: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the preamble be considered, the conrad amendment to the preamble which is at the desk be agreed to, the preamble as amended be agreed to, the resolution be considered, conrad amendment which is at the desk be agreed to and the resolution as amended be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate and any statements related to the matter be placed in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration of s. res. 211 and the senate proceed to its consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 211, observing the historical significance of juneteenth

independence day. mr. menendez: mr. president, i ask -- the presiding officer: excuse me. is there objection to proceeding? without objection. mr. menendez: mr. president, i'm anxious, as is the staff here. so i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and any statements relating to the measure be placed in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it recess until 10:00 a.m. on tuesday, june 21, that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. that following any leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business until 11:00 a.m. with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half, that

following morning business, the senate proceed to executive session under the previous order, and further that the filing deadline for second-degree amendments to s. 782, the economic development act, be 11:00 a.m. on tuesday. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: mr. president, the first roll call vote of the week will begin at approximately noon tomorrow on confirmation of the simon nomination. senators should expect up to three additional roll call votes at 4:15 p.m. on confirmation of the panetta nomination, cloture on the economic development act and cloture on the motion to proceed to the presidential appointment efficiency and streamlining act. mr. president, if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it recess under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands in recess until senate stands in recess until

>> an ohio guy. we're glad to have them here. and then jack of the law firm

based in washington, d.c. gentleman, welcome to the council. >> thank you, mr. mayor. i appreciate it. i want to thank the council of the american cities to give us the opportunity to come over here and talk to you all. let me just briefly give you a little bit of background on me. i'm not a mortgage servicer or a banker. safeguard properties is a company that provides services to the banking industry. we are a company that when alone goes into default, we go out to the property physically and take over the property and see what's happening in the property and report back to our clients. just to give you a little bit of scope, we perform -- i'm sorry. is that okay? okay. just to give you an idea, we perform roughly over a million

property inspections. these are all loans that are until the default. some kind of default stage, hasn't gone into foreclosures. we report back to the clients what's happening. we also do once a property becomes vacant and the people move out of the home, it's our responsibility to maintain that property on our client's behalf. to final disposition of their property. the reason why i'm here, the reason why we have talked to for a number of years and talked about it, what i would like to do is basically report to you the mayors of the cities what is -- we are what we call boots on the ground. we see these properties on the ground what is happening, again from the time of delinquency to the time of the position and what has happened to these properties. statistic which i don't think people are aware of which i think needs to be brought to light which is the reason why i have the gentleman here with me to help us out, out of the

million plus inspections that we reform -- perform on a monty -- monthly basis on delinquent homes, 28% of them become vacant where people will get up and move out of the home for one reason or another. i don't know college or why. these are properties that have not gone into foreclosure or are in the beginning stages of the foreclosure process. but people will get up and move out. go to property one month, it's occupied, the next month for some reason they are gone. here's what happens when the property becomes vacant in the pre-foreclosure stage. in most states it'll take the foreclosure process itself will take anywhere from 18 months sometimes as high as three years to go through the foreclosure process. i think everybody agrees, like you've heard the secretary, as long as the property is occupied, someone is living in the home, our function -- not

our function, our client's function is to keep the individual in the home. we do not want to have vacant homes. regardless of payments being made, payments not being made. there's a variety of different programs that address that. that's not what i'm focusing on. i'm focusing on properties that have become vacant, people have moved out, and nobody is there anymore. now i will tell you again being boots on the ground, seeing these properties on the month to month basis because we are out there every single month regardless how well you try to maintain vacant homes, the longer the property sits vacant it's going to deteriorate, it's going to be a blight on the neighborhood, on the community, it's going to be a blight obvious the next door neighbor. it is definitely not helping anybody. and again i want to repeat this is not an issue that is widely known. that's the reason why i'm here. i want to bring this to the forefront. we deal with communities all over the country. we have been talking about it, trying to find ways of how a

property that becomes vacant nobody is there, instead of having the property sit there vacant for months on end, we need to find a way to somehow circumvent the situation. again, there's no consumer in the house because it's vacant. the biggest complaint that we get from people -- from neighbors, vacant properties is because when we go out to the vacant property, we'll put our sticker on the door. on the door it will say we are maintaining the property. we get calls from the neighbors every single day, what's happening with the property? kids are in there. drugs are in there. depending on the area. okay? there's no way a vacant property helping anybody. so it's not something that you are protecting a foreclosure, it's protecting the city, it's protecting the neighborhood, it's protecting the entire blight issue. also keep in mind while the

property is in the foreclosures stage, which means it has not gone to foreclosure yet. some states will take three years for that process to complete. while the process -- the stage and the servicer, the banker, the inventor has limited league rights of what action to take on a property. because they have not yet -- might be a lean holder or lender, but not yet have taken legal position. they can do certain items to collect the collateral interest, quote, unquote. i'm not a lawyer. being in the business, i know the system how it works. it is very limited legal rights that a bank can take. to take action. i think it's my responsibility -- i'm not a servicer. to bring it to light. the vacant properties are causing a blight, which is actually true. there's no question about it. as long as the property sits vacant, the neighborhood, block

is going to deteriorate. i can tell you i've seen properties when we go out to the property, it is still a decent home. 200,000, 300,000 home, people are living there. it's a neighborhood. but at time the foreclosure process completes and the institutions takes possession, the property is worth $60,000 because it's vandalized and been deteriorating. we are out. but there's so much we can do. we want to introduce the president which is one the most aggressive land bank companies in the country. there are solutions out there. we have to get together and talk about it and try to find the solution. as of right now, i've been hearing this for 20 years. there's a combination that can

be achieved if we work together. i would like jim to take that from there. >> thank you. thank you, mayor it's incredible to be here. we talk about the japanese as they rebuild. spirit is best by the body not of the federal government but the response of mayors throughout the affected that are responsible for the rebuilding. it's an amazing story, and it speaks to the power of mayors in japan. i know having served 19 years as a member of the city council, always trying to get along with the mayor and 14 years in county government, just how important mayors are. i realize there are mayors from all over the country. both strong as well as weak. virtually all of you affected by the foreclosures and the implications of the fallout. in our city in particular, the fallout, known this, is best

characterized by increased vacancies, and stunning in cleveland, detroit, cleveland, cincinnati, dayton, and walk aways. one out of four the homeowners looked at value and they walk away. they leave the keys. we're also seeing plummeting property values and destroyed real estate markets, for example in the city of cleveland, they released a study. thage home in cleveland takes 954 and now selling at 8 to 10% of auditors value. along with this comes more abandonment, especially in central cities. the organization -- and the anger over this collapse, of course, has been understandable and jest if if i -- justified. we've seen litigate all over the country. we turned our focus in ohio, northeastern ohio where my administration is working to

some innovations that we are taking over debt properties, often called zombie properties. it is a powerful and regionally funded land bank in the number of county and cities in ohio. it opened in cleveland in 2009, and taking over 1,000 properties since late 2009. they are now taking over 100 properties a month. there's innovations that can apply as well. fannie mae is transferring all low-value property to the lank band with a check for $2300 towards demolition. freddie mac is starting, hud is transferring to the county land bank, wells fargo, and bank of america have entered into agreements with a check for $7500 which covers most of the demolition cost. and i can tell you, and this is based on talking to the people in the business, these practices have killed the flipping market

in cleveland, ohio. they have choked off the dumping of low-value properties. the bank there is also actively engaged in demolition through the revenue generated by the sale of properties that do have value. but the lack of demolition dollars is killing many of the older cities in the midwest. as i see your new american city logo here, i can tell you you can't envision new american cities in many of the communities until you take down the old american cities. unfortunately, the money is simply not there. we have plenty of studies that show the value of occupied homes. if you live next to a vacant property, very well documented. as are studies that show values increased for occupied homes when the vacant structures are removed. yet our inability to convince federal officials of this pressing need is continued to be a problem. demolition dollars continue to be problematic. mayors in weak market cities already now that. in ohio, we have passed one

other innovation to talk about briefly and one before the ohio senate now. the first one, it's actually a number of years old now is house bill 294. it expedited the foreclosures of tax delinquent properties. the cities that were particularly hard hit, even tax delinquent properties that had been abandoned, vacant lots, structures, taking up to two years. house bill 294, i have copies of summaries of these bills for mayors that are interested. house bill 294 in ohio now takes the tax properties and foreclosured on it in about 90 days. the second bill that's now in the ohio senate, it was actually introduced this week is going to allow the fast track of foreclosures where the home owner has for whatever reason decided to walk away from the property. again, i had summaries of the bill. this bill will take the foreclosure process, again up to two years on the walk away

properties and reduce the time on foreclosures four to six months. maybe even less. this reduces, obviously, the exposure of vacant property to criminal elements and day cay that can ruin the property over time, returns it to the market more quickly for resale, and gives neighborhoods a chance by occupying it quickly. or probably going the demolition route. finding funds seems to be problematic. we have worked in ohio in hopes that we can become a national model. we hope by taking control of the properties more quickly, we can help alleviate the problem. especially in weak market cities. >> thank you. >> thank you. and i -- actually we've seen the actual end result of this type of closing going in, getting a lot more transaction from different areas in the country where it is absolutely taking hold that the sooner that you

could take the property and put it in some responsible hands as legal possession of the property the more you can hold them accountable and the more you can make sure it is being done. i know for a second, jack is a -- on the board of the directors of the mortgage bankers association. he also chairs the state legislative committee for the mortgage bank association. and this has been an issue that has been talked about and focused on quite extensively because i know i'm on the calls almost every week. and the calls last for a couple of hours at a time sometimes. try to focus on how do we -- how does industry get hold of the properties and make sure that there's an end seat that can handle that. >> thank you, robert. as you point out, i do chair the state legislative regulatory committee at the national mortgages bankers association. i'm not here on their behalf. i'm here to talk about my experiences and my observations.

i've been in the mortgage banking industry in various roles for about 40 years and have watched not just this crisis, but crisises before this. and seen things that do and don't work. one the things that's absolutely true, and you've heard it, you've heard the statistics around it from jim and from bob, it's important that properties move to resolutions as quickly as possible. it's also vitally important that homeowners that want to retain their home find ways to retain their home. you pointed out earlier, there are a lot of obstacles in that space that need to be worked out. there's no question about that. robert said something very important. 28% of the properties he sees on a regular basis just entering the process are already vacant and abandoned. for whatever reason the occupant of the property has given up on the real estate and it's empty. and empty is the playground of the devil. there are all sorts of shenanigans and mayors you all

know that that go on in vacant properties. as you've also heard, the ability of the servicer, lender, investor, who ever has interest is hampered by the fact that they don't have legal rights until the foreclosure process runs. to the extent that takes years that allows all of the desperation -- deterioration and the shenanigans and blight. and that allowed that to happen and exacerbate the problem. we wanted to talk to you about the 28%. we don't have an answer to the whole. but we do believe we have a good answer to the 28% of the property that is are creating the largest drag on your cities. that is that we need to be moved through the process as quickly as possible so that whether it's the taxing authority in the case of the tax expedition bill that jim talked about, or it is a property that's empty because of whatever decision that got it there, that property needs to

get in the hands of someone that can do things with it. land banks are a great thing that's come about now to try to do resolution. are a agreements with nonprofits in a number of cities were rehabilitation and placing new homeowners in those properties. all of those options exist only after the point at which there is title and absolute ability to convey that's granted to the person of interest today whether that's the mortgage, the investor, servicer, whenever it is. so it's that period that's eating everyone's lunch on abandoned properties that we wanted to talk to you about. i do chair the state committee in mba. we have a monthly call. people around the country, and lenders and local advocates as a whole group of people that get on that call. we usually have several hundred folks on the call. we talk about issues. one the issues that we talk about a lot are what to do about vacant and abandoned problems.

it is as large of an issue as it is for you. the one place that there's low hanging fruit we know what the clear solution is. ohio has it the experience. they know the quicker they get the property and get it in the hands of land bank or some other resolution or demolition if that's the right answer speeds the property and ends the decay. so we wanted to bring that model to you and tell you about it, answer your questions about it, and ask that you help us convince the legislatures that this is the right track for properties that can be proven to be abandoned. >> i'll just add okay. >> go ahead. >> i can just add, i want to make -- nobody is indicating or talking or even thinking about taking any kind of action on the foreclosure of a property that's occupied not on the table. that is not what we're talking about. that's not even being considered. just to give you an example, we take -- i was in detroit, okay,

the city, we inspected 1,000 properties. all low-end value properties. what we found is that 80% of them were still occupied. this was not the neighborhoods, we took a block, there was about 15 properties on there. okay? 3/4 of the block still occupied. the rest of them -- another ten houses on the property were vacant, but still in condition where you could rehab that property. you could rehab that property fairly simply and get some people to live in there. the rest of it is was properties that was totally demolition. there's nothing that could be done. that is a problem. you cannot rehab a property on that block unless you get rid of the demolition. there's no doors. there's ways to keep them in there, try to keep them in there on a block that's going to be

developed. we have the three buckets, and the demolitions ones. being underground, all three of those need to be addressed at the same time. you will not have a rehab situation, anybody where we have a property on the block that totally is worth is, it needs to go. like jim said, you got to clean up the old stuff, get it out of the way, old american cities and create american cities. we need to have some questions here. we'll start with the first one and open it up. why don't you start with the first one. because i couldn't get to your first question earlier with the secretary. so please. >> thank you. i'm pete lewis, i'm a past banker. one the problems that we run into is going through that chain until the property can either be sold or the title changed. so we have a period after foreclosure of six to nine

months. in many of the cases, there is -- properties being serviced by one bank mortgage company to the other. in the meantime, the upkeep of that property is what's causing problems in our cities and they are becoming overgrown, abandoned, broken windows, we make agreements with great outfits that last just as long as as it's in the hands of the one lender and transferred to the next. we need to have a system working through the banks and the mortgage organizations that allows upkeep of those -- that housing during the period where it's going through foreclosure because we might see five different servicing outfits from the beginning of the foreclosure to the end as they go through their participation agreements. >> mr. barry, another former banker. you are right. those are challenges in the process. as you point out, that's in the process up until the time a single entity takes possession

of the property. if that's three years worth of grief, that's a lot worse than the vacant and abandoned property than if it's three months. now that's the issue that we're talking about. to the extent that we can shorten the time where the most vulnerable properties sit in that situation, the better for everybody involved. now i agree with you, the other issue needs work as well. there are a host of issues that need work. but in the case of a vacant and abandoned property where there is no consumer to protect, the faster we move it to resolution, the faster that we solve that problem as well. >> yes, sir. >> could you press -- >> turn the mike on. >> mayor from santa fe, new mexico. all of the solution you are talking about, do they require state resolution state by state

pretty much? >> they do. and it is one thing i learned from being in both local government and city and county level, we're creatures of state. we have to cooperate. we find it necessary to create strong partnerships. the model statutes however can be used in any state in the country. the land bank is really the father of the land banking is a man named dan from michigan. and i'd be more than willing to share contact information though they put together model statutes dealing with land banking we have model statutes that deal with tax foreclosures and home owner walk away legislation. i'd be more than willing to share those. i think we have to engage our state legislatures. the one thing i've learned over the years, term limits, there's a turn over. the most critical local governments can play is to back off and educate to often finally getting up to speed just in time

to be told their term in government is over because their term is expired. >> mr. mayor, the reason that we are here is the same reason we've gone to the major community advocacy groups around the country and the servicers. in the political process, and i'm a former banker, but i do government affairs. i did then, i do now. the most compelling message that you can give a legislator is everyone agrees this is the right answer. if they hear from just us in a think tank capacity, that's right. and it's interesting. if they hear from you that the city believes this is the right answer and they hear from the advocacy groups that they believe it's the right answer, it starts to build a cree sen doe. it tells them two things. it most likely is the right answer, because they don't sleep in the same hotel, much less the same bed very often. secondly, it's something they can do that isn't controversial, but will be seen as positive

which resonates with them. to the extent that you can become comfortable and another voice advocating for the solution, it helps get the state legislatures to pay attention. >> i can just follow up on the question that you asked. dealing on a national basis with vacant properties and code enforcement officials, the one common complaint that we hear is the residents that you have mentioned. when they have a property with the property, they don't know who to contact. who is the interested parties for that property? and that's been a problem for years and years and years. what we have done right now is we have created a database that's out there. now this doesn't cost the city a nickel, not one penny. not in any shape or form. but we created a database where the code enforcement that comes across the property that they have a problem. i'm not saying violation. when you get the complaint from

the neighborhood. starts, neighbor calls, property is vacant, aggressive has been cut in three months and causing all kinds of problems. we have a database where any code official will be able to go, put in the property address, and what the complaint is the database is will at that point drag down who the lien holder -- not only the lien holder, but the servicer and not only that, who within the service organization is responsible for that particular property. we definitely are working, trying to find ways, understanding that being out in the community, i see the devastation first hand. i see the family devastation of what's going on. we're trying to create tools that the cities can partner with our end of the business and try to find solutions on how to make this thing work. it's a problem that we've never seen. i've heard jim say a couple of years ago we're in world war iii on our shores. this is a crisis that i see the

volume of doing for 20 years to 200,000. it's not decreasing, it's increasing. but we're trying to find tools to sit down, work together, recognize the problem, and try to find solutions for it. like we said were your help is definitely appreciated. >> any other questions? okay. thank you very much. jim, it's so good to see you again. you are doing a great job up there in northern ohio. i appreciate you very much. thank you. i appreciate you guys. [applause] >> if we can bring up elizabeth mendenhall and norm, we're going to start out with elizabeth mendenhall. all just kind of line up along

here, i would appreciate it. >> thank you very much, mayor coleman. as a remember of the national association of realtors, we're so pleased to be here with so many community leaders today. the organization in many communities can comprise as many of half a percent and we are volunteers, community leaders, and we income pass over a million community citizens throughout your towns and communities. one the things we want to make sure that was kind of on your radar screen and very important in community development was employer-assisted housing program. historically it ranged from 31 to 46 times that of a renter. 31 to 46 times that of a renter. every home purchase pumps 60,000 into the economy for furniture, home improvements, and other

items. every two homes sold creates one job. it's not just about home ownership, but it is about job creation in the communities. for every purchaser who is able to and can afford it, a home certainly makes a difference in their lives and a difference in the community. as the national economy is struggling, america will be wise to support housing and especially in your different communities. nar has a variety of tools to boost your economies and increase work force housing opportunities right in your neighborhood. why is work force housing important? imagine if you are a policeman, a teacher, or an emergency worker in any of our communities, your salary combined with the tight credit market is probably making it hard for you to find safe, affordable housing near your job. each of you are working so hard to correct those jobs in your areas it's important that those members of your communities can live there and be active

citizens. the teachers, the firefighters, police officers, restaurant workers that keep our country running. they are having to move further and further away from the places of business. on the flip side, this housing challenge hurts an employer ability to attract and maintain good workers. we know one the most important things when employees are considering moving that they actually survey and poll their workers and find out whether or not they want to move into that area. they do a lot of research online. we know that 96% of all buyers search online. if they know they are going to move to a community they can't afford, it may not be the best place where the employees are going to consider moving their jobs. that's why the employee housing programs can really help. the national association of realtors is committed to be your partner in making sure this is a viable program.

a simple employee assisted program can help an employee. they are involved in the neighborhoods and studies also show that children of homeowners for better in schools in the ar. as better housing advocates, we're going to be part of the solution. last year we contributed over $5.2 million in the partnerships with the cities across the country to provide different employee housing opportunities. we have a book that's kind of in the back of the room. it goes state by state and talks about the different programs with different cities that we provided that available. the national association of realtors offers a four hour class to use on how to work with their employees to set up the programs so that they can be to the benefit of the employees in the area. we also are part of employee-assisted housing work groups throughout the country which assist and look for ways

to partner with the federal government and employees to sit housing on the federal level. this year we are housing are new round of programs. it's called bring workers home. and their regional policy forms which focus on the nature of regional work force housing challenges and best practices. so we are inviting employees throughout the area to come be a part of the workshop, talk about how each of us can benefit from employees-assisted housing. i want to highlight two associations in particular that have been heros for some of these programs. in wisconsin, the wisconsin association of realtors partnered with the wisconsin housing finance agency and they created a web site called wisconsin housing work. and it served as a resource for local government, for lenders, and from the employers and counseling agencies in the area on how to create employer-assisted housing

program. we heard a lot about secretary donovan and the importance on how that works and education in the home buying process and the different partnerships that can work as well. it's a resource that you can use and copy in different cities and states. and the national association of realtors wants to be part of that instead of the realtors in that area. there's realtors in the house date who have been incredible work force housing champions. they took the initiative and invited a representative from the state to talk to the realtors in their area about an employer-assisted housing program. and there's a program in the baltimore area, live near your work. secretary donovan talked about the importance of the blight. we fill some of the vacant commercial, we need to do the same for the residential in the area so that people can live where they work, cut down on the cost of housing, and actually be in the communities where they

are working to help revitalize those areas and invigorate that. the maryland association recognizes if realtors don't know, they can't tell their clients about them. in your packages of information, we brought several examples that we mentioned the wisconsin and baltimore. you have success stories all across the country in alabama, in mississippi, also in philadelphia had a program called home buying now. it's included in your packet. aflac is one the employees that have a wonderful employer-assisting housing. they were able to identify in one community the gap between the median house available and the median income needed to afford the home. so they had a great program. there's an example of that in some of your housing programs.

obviously right now we're all working hard to make sure we can increase the economy and increase housing affordability. again, any person, any family who can afford it and who is responsible buyers should have the right to home ownership. the millions of realtors across the country are available to help. they are great volunteer resource, and we want to encourage you to make contact with your local association of realtors, be in contact with the state association of realtors, because we want to be there as a financial partner, as a partner for growth, and as a partner to make the country better. we really appreciate the opportunity to be here today and present some of the programs. and i thank you. [applause] [applause] >> thank you very much.

i'll take any questions that anybody has regarding that presentation. okay. being none -- okay. one over here. yes. mayor? your not working either? [inaudible conversations] >> in the baltimore area, the live where you work program. i believe they have partnered up with the realtor organization. but there were also in the city that it looked like participated a little bit of that as well. the importance with the employer-assisted housing programs, there's lots of different banks, lenders, the communities and when we all partner together, we can certainly find resources to help make that work.

>> thank you. any other questions? >> there's a lot of foreclosures in our market. but i've noticed the national news recently has been very negative about home ownership. in fact, talking about it ought to be a five year wait before you purchase the home. is the national association of realtors doing anything to offset that negative press about investing in a home? >> yeah, i think that's a good question. one of our platform programs this year is a program called home ownership matters. and we have kind of a touring mobile campaign where we've been going across the country in different communities. some of those are the communities that have been hit hardest. we've also been trying to partner when we go to those communities with the city government, the state government, to focus on the different statistics.

because all real estate is local. in fact, 70% of all of the foreclosures in the country were in only 42 counties. and so it's really important. one the things we're doing is make sure the local statistics are publicized in the local area. we are providing more and more local statistics. if you are in a community, certainly contact your realtor organization to get those numbers. we're doing everything that we can to try to provide the local statistics. many communities are having success and growth with job growth or their community isn't as distraught as perhaps other communities in the country. it's important to publicize that. >> okay. thank you. all right. we're going to move on to mary kay leonard. mary kay is the -- she's involved.

the initiative for competitive intercity. she directs it. and the council and the initiative for competitive inner city are going to be engaged in a joint research partnership. and the idea there is to -- for cities to leverage institutions for small business development for the focus on job creation and communities as a result of those anchor institutions. i've had a chance to get to know mary kay, she's a wonderful person. and the initiative for competitive in her city is a wonderful opportunity for us to partner with. i'm going to give you this microphone, because this one isn't working. >> thank you, mr. mayor. it's a pleasure to have you at our summit last fall in san francisco. we at the initiative are very excited about this partnership that we've formed with the council. we no that it's only in partnership with you the mayors

that we can be our job which is just job creation in inner cities across the country, the most economically distressed areas in our city. we believe like you do that these urban cores are not just a sea of need, but rather have real assets which can be leveraged to create jobs for the residents and for the communities. we believe that it's a key -- one of these assets is our anchor institutions. particularly universities and hospitals. so that's why that -- these anchor institutions are forming the first part of the partnership with the council. i'm going to just send a few minutes and tell you a little bit about some the research that we have already done. there is a paper in your packet. they have handout which i'll just leave with you. let me just give you one fact. in 66 of the largest cities, the

largest institution is the largest employee. they could be actually doing a lot more. what icis does is we work with anchor institutions and really ground our work with two things. we think these are fundamental to our approach. the first one is the concept of shared value. it's pretty simple concept on page two of the paper. it essentially says that the fortune of the anchor institution is called an anchor for a reason. cleveland clinic can't be in any place but cleveland. the fortune, it's tied to the fortune of that community. the anchor needs it's surrounding neighborhoods, community, for patient to attract jobs, students, faculty, need to be able to buy goods and services from that community and it needs it's community to be viable to do that. the community you know needs the

anchor institution for jobs to purchase supplies, provides goods and services to support often times the health and the social needs, the educational needs of the community. secondly, in addition to this idea of the linkage, there is -- and again you'll see it on page two of the paper, there really are multiple ways that an anchor can work with it is community. and these ways are not just because it's nice for it to do. these are principal business levers that the anchor has to pull every single day in order to succeed if pulled in a certain way and lends to shared value, thinking about what's good for the business, what's good for the anchor, and where there could be a complimentary beneficial impact, then the business decision will be better, better for the anchor, community and create long term

examples. let me give you a couple of examples. simple example, hiring. so when an anchors hire every day. they don't ask themselves or ask the anchors, what percentage are people coming from the surrounding neighborhood. the anchor might say back i'm a university. and frankly that's not who lived in the neighborhood. actually another fact, 2/3 of the jobs in hospital, 1/3 of the jobs in universities can actually be held by folks with an associates agree or less. it becomes much easier to think about how to leverage the hiring patterns. second example, purchasing, again how often does the anchor ask itself, do you ask the anchor, what percentage of your purchasing spend or the spend that you have on construction jobs actually goes to local

residents or local companies. if the anchor is tracking it, most of the time they aren't, it's going to be less than 10%. we have three anchors in detroit that have increased local to 10% to 30%. they are going through a very step by step set of actions in order to make that a reality. last -- third example. cluster anchors, only recently have we really called it that. many of you know are working in your cities to try to leverage the power of your research institutions in order to grow clusters of interrelated businesses. you are seeing it in technology, biotech, medical devices. but let me just -- and that's a much longer term.

let me just give you the example of san diego. it's 25 years ago when mayor pete wilson pulled together business universities, businesses, actually, and the university of san diego and said how are we going to stimulate the commercialization of research. city gave land, city created a nonprofit incubator, it was called a connector back then. today 6,000 technology companies employing 140,000 people in san diego, coming out of the action. again 25 years, but that's 140,000 new jobs as a result of that. so as i wrap up we are working with anchors across the country. we are saying to them simply, start with your own business needs, understand what the over lap is and the needs of the neighborhood around you, use the shared value lens as you are making those business decisions,

hiring, purchasing, which companies am i going to create, spinoff, how am i going to do that? how do i do real estate development on a go forward basis. walk around that little wheel that you have in that paper. and then how do i begin to work with the other stakeholders in the community to really use those roles in a much more comprehensive way. because that's actually how you are going to get the highest economic and social value for the community as well as competitiveness for the anchor. likewise, we're hoping through the partnership that we can have the conversations with you about what role for mayors. each of you, i know, is working with one of your anchors in probably some sort of a way. it might using your anchors is an education reform project now, it might actually helping in your work force training systems, but if you think about these kinds of examples, there's probably much more that you

could be doing to encouraging -- encourage those anchors to actually leverage their power. i'll give you one example. we're working now with new york city small business services. the small business service group has hired us to actually talk with their key university. university with pratt, like city of new york, like columbia, to understand how they are currently engaging in the community, what more they want to do, what more they think they could do, and what would they need from the city in order for them to encourage to do that? yes, you could hear lots of examples coming -- we heard a lot about, well, i need the tax advantage, free land, this and that. those are not the kinds of examples coming out of the conversations. some of them are much simpler. like, gee, we'd like a list of all of the businesses around the neighborhood that we could actually begin to do business with, or maybe you could do some

capacity and evaluate and improvement of them so they can do it. there are multiple things that are going to come out of the interviews that will be convening those anchors with the city in the fall to help them learn from each other and hoping to be able to bring those learnings to all you have and create more and more of them with up. thank you, i appreciate this partnership very much. >> thank you. i want to just -- we got to move forward. i'll take questions if there are any. i want to talk just briefly about what we're doing in columbus. we have two great partnerships, anchor institutions, one is children's hospital, the other is the ohio state university. and very similar to what you have spoken of and we look toward to a partnership with you in the city of columbus. we have an advisory council set

up, our objective is a comprehensive, economic development, community changing process. where the anchor institutions will engage that. with the city of columbus and other partners that we've brought to the table. and hopefully we can come together on some ideas in that regard. i can see your doing this in other places and we would love to have your engagement in the city of columbus as well. okay. thank you. now i'd like to bring forward chattanooga mayor, littlefield over here. and norm jack, say a few words about how great a city chattanooga is, first of all, and also about the information technology infrastructure you are using to promote economic development in your community. ron, is that working? probably isn't. all right. here you go. >> signed off.

>> mr. mayor, thank you. chattanooga is an old industrial city down south. it's something of an anomaly, because most southern cities that grew to any side were based on agriculture. chattanooga was based on heavy industry, like in the northwest. as a result we were -- were a very polluted city. most city can share a lot of city, but most cities were not characterized as the dirty city in america by walter cronkite some years ago. about 40 years he announced on the evening that the dirtiest city in america was chattanooga, tennessee. we went through cleaning and visioning and such and were inspired by other cities like baltimore and one of their favorite sons, james ross, if you come to chattanooga, you'll see the restored river front

that looked a little bit like the aquarium here in baltimore. we have stolen ideas from cities around the country and some extent around the world. we've rebuilt the river front in the downtown and restored the environment and even just in recent years rebuilt our industrial base with the edition of over $300 million in investment, recently opened billion-dollar newstroke way gap, and just opened employing a lot of people. well, there's a lot of infrastructure that's made that possible. we all look for what is the next level? chattanooga has a partner which we own, the electric power board

in the business of distributing power as a major distributor for the pennsylvania valley authority. now when they started looking at smart grids, something that we've heard a lot about in gatherings such as this, we can do it in the old technology way, or do it in the new technology, the best way that we think, the most lasting, is to extent fiber to every home and business. over 130,000 users. we did just that. we were able to build a business plan around it to issue bonds and when the call came for those shovel-ready projects a few months ago, we were already shoveling. we qualified and received 111 -- $111 million grant to extent the fiberoptic to the service

quickly, make sure everyone was covered, inner city, suburb. so chattanooga now has the fastest internet service in the country. we have now said a few months ago, i was on a number of national news programs and in introducing us one new york men they tour talking to his audience and i was in a studio here in washington attending. they wanted to talk about it and introducing me, they said, well, you might think if you need the fastest internet that you would go to california or go to the boston area, somewhere like that. no, you need to go to a little town down south, set it up for me that way, and what a wonderful way to be introduced to the world. but we do have the fastest internet service in the country. and when we announced it, people said no one needs that. gigabyte service?

i don't know what that means, but i know it is extremely fast. the medical professionals said we can use it. the scientific people at university said we can use it. the visionographers, advertising, and film that we can use it. others said we can use it too. we found it is an extremely useful tool for economic development. it's a little bit like discovering fire, frankly. people say well, it has all of the good uses. what all can you do with it? we're not quite sure. in fact, one the local entrepreneurial groups is sponsoring a competition to determine what can you do with this new tool. we know it has all of the medical applications and so forth that i mention. but it is, in fact, the new infrastructure of business. the new technology is digital technology. i think that we all even though in this room that are my age and

about that have acknowledged that. the new business of art, science, and business is the information business. and the new american city is the wired city and the wireless city, we are over laying our fiberoptic with a mesh system that will enable our public employees, fire and police to have access to tremendous technology resources so they aren't walking into any dangerous situation without being able to see exactly what that situation is both in video and in building plans and such that will be able to them on their screens, on their laptops in their vehicles. that's the story in a nutshell. with that, let me hand the microphone to norman jack with cisco, which has been a partner follows us and helping us to find new ways.

morman. >> thank you very much. i'm been working with dave and this council on developing a strategy for future oriented economic growth cities. and it's sort of based on the major transition that we're beginning to see in our city. a shift to most people actually produces knowledge and intangible services, along with the ubiquitous communications. communications anywhere from any place to anywhere else, neither one of those trends is exactly in place yet. but it's happening and so if you are looking forward to the next ten to 20 years, you have to take into account and part of what we've been trying to do is to figure out what the implications are, and do some demonstrations projects that will help you figure out what kinds of things you need to start worrying about for the future and start doing for the

future. and so chattanooga comes along. we have been looking for the cities to do in the projects. they came along. mary didn't mention, but there's an annual award for the most intelligent communities in the world. and they were in this year's top seven. and most of the actual cities that were in that top seven were not american. it's difficult. unfortunately, we're pretty backward about this compared to the rest of the world. and so it has in addition to the gigabyte fiber network that the mayor talked about, which is by the way, at least 1,000 times more speed than you have now, i'm sure, any of you at home, just to give you an idea of what we're talking about. in addition to this, the city has tremendous quality of life which is going to be an important factor we've talked about in previous council meetings. a real human scale that's hard

to appreciate unless you go there. there's a visionary mayor, frankly that's very important for some of these projects. civic cultures that works that's functioning and on an entrepreneurial, very active entrepreneurial community and i'll talk about that. the major has gotten me and started working with a little committee of people in the government and also there's a major local foundation that's had a historical role in helping the city revitalize itself. chamber of commerce, entrepreneurial groups and we've been talking about a variety of things that we can start to do to demonstrate a feature oriented economic approach. one aspect of this is connecting the entrepreneurial community with video in other ways with the global economy. it's not just we're all used to thinking about globalization in the sense of manufacturing can happen in china or vietnam or anywhere.

it will be even for intangible services the real global economy. and it's even starting now. even entrepreneurs from their base in chattanooga can reach out and use that high-speed broadway they have to talk to venture capitalist and investors. and they don't necessarily even need to rebuild their own version of m.i.t. in the backyard, because they can reach out and get access to all of the courses that m.i.t. has put online. what's interesting is i met a couple of entrepreneurs who have returned to chattanooga. some connection to the community, although not all that long. they had worked in places like silicon valley and new york and in boston and they decided their late 20s and early 30s, it was time to figure out where they wanted to live. they went to complete -- went to chattanooga. the new network allows them to

do this and maintain all of the relationships they had with silicon valley and new york which was the best of both worlds as far as they are concerned. part of this is to help figure out how to have all of the entrepreneurs get access to the resources, not just locally, but worldwide. and the second part of this is in the knowledge economy that we're going into lifelong learning is critical. i know you've heard about this to some extent. it'll really no longer just a nice to have. so much effort has gone to the k-12. we forget about later on. they need to keep their skills up. we started to talk to the library about having them take on the role of organizing all of the education and training that exists on the internet and most of it in the form of video that can be now be delivered. and taking all of that stuff and

organized it for people in the city so that they can go to the library and say, look, i need to learn this or that and they can immediately have a package of things they can get to from their homes. so that's just two examples. the other thing i'm going to say is, this is a little bit away from the economic development aspect. but chattanooga because of the network they have in place is really a test bed for all kinds of things. the mayor has encouraged people in not just the contest, but in other ways to think about how kinds of new experiments. you mention smart grid. for those of you that have heard, most of what we've heard about is not smart. it's a connection between the home and the utility that could easily go over the internet. you don't need a new smart grid. what they have done is build a smart grid and had bad weather, tornadoes, whatever, that smart grid has the intelligence in the grid itself to reorient itself

to find a path of electricity. this is not any kind of smart grid that most people have talked about because they have that network. entertainment, it is a big area now and the mayor mentioned the arts. you can actually combine all kinds of virtual stuff. another area which you are beginning to hear about, you may not have heard about it yet is the importance of games. there's a school in new york city called quest to learn in which the whole educational structure has been changed to the environment in which kids learn from playing games. and people in chattanooga say we can take that to the next step. and government. you can bring some of the examples when i was in chattanooga. he had some of the folks show some of the stuff. some of this is almost like science fiction. a little remote helicopters to

send video from any place that you want. and on a three dimensional image. there's all kinds of possibilities that they are exploring. what we're trying to do is educate the community, educate the st. st. citizens to take ad. i know you've heard a fair amount of news. this is very optimistic kind of thing. it's good news. and this -- while we all worry about transition, change is difficult, the transition that we're talking about now if you respond properly gives you the potential to redefine and reinvent. i think look at chattanooga for some examples and hopefully we'll find some others too. thank you. >> thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> can't wait to go to chattanooga. looking forward to it. any questions? okay. yes. mayor.

[inaudible conversations] >> the yes is -- [inaudible conversations] >> financing of fiberoptic broadband network? the electric power board has an advisory board that's made up of some of the most conservative individuals in the city, business leaders. they are required before entering into this project that an extensive study be undertaken and a very elaborate business plan be constructed. they had to make sure that the system could support itself on savings alone, just in savings of electric, savings of downtime and such, and it actually does that. they showed the business plan to me. i'm not exaggerate,ing it filled a shelf that was like 12 feet long. all of the elements that they had studied. now on the bases of that, bonds were issued and the system

built. it does provide in addition to internet, it provides video and there were quite a few questions and lawsuits and such from competitors about that issue. but the system was built simply to support the electrical system. which is industrial-grade electrical system. that's how we got volkswagen and all of that. we want to make sure think are going to be online. they are not going to be knocked off. this investment was based on that. we did have the benefit of $111 million grant. that was because of the stimulus program that came down the pipe. very unexpectedly. and what they do was enable us to build a system out faster and get online quicker and start the revenue flowing faster. it was the influence of first of all the good business minds that

put the idea together. then the hard economic story that was affecting the entire country actually worked out very well for us because the money was put into new infrastructure. people said the money needs to go into infrastructure. it's exactly what it did. it's paying off. >> they actually did an analysis, financial analysis that showed this thing would payback. it didn't depend on the stimulus funds, it just allowed them to accelerate their role out. >> thank you very much. i appreciate everybody coming to the council. we look forward to a tremendous conference here in baltimore. i look forward to your ongoing participation. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> tuesday on c-span. the road to the white house coverage continues with former u.s. ambassador to china, john huntsman. he's announcing his intention to run. the same location where ronald reagan kicked off his presidential campaign in 1980. watch live coverage on 10 a.m. eastern on c-span. this weekend, booktv and american history look at the history and literary life of savannah, georgia with booktv including the childhood home of novelist, a conversation with dorthy, and john berance and on

american history tv on c-span3, traveling to the founding days of savannah and explore civil war with a story. c-span's local content this weekend on c-span2 and 3. >> mr. president, thank you very much. i feel deeply honored to be nominated to become the 20th director of the central intelligence agency. >> with the senate confirmation scheduled for this thursday, learn more through the 50 appearances online at the c-span video library with more than 150,000 people and every c-span program since 1987. all searchable and free. it's washington your way. >> next a discussion on the role and identity of arab americans.

you'll hear from an egyptian american who founded the group democracy in the arab world now and comedian and actor ahmed ahmed. this is an hour and 28 minutes. >> all right. thank you. thank you all for joining us. i'm sorry, we are starting late. when you have good food, you have a panel that starts late. we apologize. we'll get things going. the panel panel -- today's panes defining the role and identity as a community. this is a very important panel. it's taking a look at a very serious subject, the identity of arab-americans, here in the united states and the identity of the arab world abroad. recently within the last year, adc has done an outreach to the

arab community as a whole, and not just one area or region. traditionally adc has done this, we are an agency for the all arabs, within the last year, we pushed an initiative through the d.c. chapter. one the numbers, who really helped us outreach with the american community. we want to thank you for that. we did make tremendous strides with the communities. that being said, we began working close with the living american community as a recent -- the american community that we've tried our best to get with them. things are going. it's definitely a process. the axillary american community seems to be a challenge, but we're going to push forward and try to forge the relationship. the objective is to offer abc as a research and tool for the organization to use. when we approach the

organization, the question often comes up what is arab? who are arab? what makes me an arab? what makes you an arab? language we speak? way we dress? food we eat? what commonalities and what differences to arabs have? it's definitely going to be a good panel. for the sake of time, i will skip the intro and each speaker. >> i thought our agreement was to start further off. >> okay. go first. ladies first. >> ladies like to take last words. so. go for it. >> it would be very unarab of me if you didn't. >> it's an arab thing. yeah. >> yeah, just a two oh -- or three minute introduction. >> i work for the islamic state,

t the largest community in the united states. i didn't let -- i would like to begin for congratulating the abc for putting together such an important panel. it is actually the identity of the arabs, who is arab? this is political question. there are a lot of mistakes and misconceptions on this particular subject. not here in the united states, but actually it is in the arab world as well. when the definition of who is an arab actually was defined in the 1940s, you know, by the arab leagues and other leagues, they defined, you know, the arabs in,

you know, three categories. the language, arab or in the region, -- >> next we're going to have the difficult lights coming on. >> so i think that, you know, when they define who is an arab, you know, they define that bit on basically if you speak the language, you know, so you are an arab, or, you know, even there's a political definition about this and hopeful, you know, as well. if you are belonging to that rights and other, you know, famous assemblies, you are an arab. i think it is difficult to say that i think it was a great

mistake is to, you know, -- to put the arab in that very narrow kind of definition. you know, arab is a very diverse, you know, very diverse community in the arab world itself, but unfortunately, even in the most majority of the arab countries, you don't see that, you know, the people who aren't living there are recognized as an arab. for instance, in sudan where i am coming from, people there in the north of the sudan with sudan in the arab country in the north probably you might see no problem people teach arabic. but maybe in the other parts of the sudan, you know, you wouldn't -- you don't see that. even in other countries, even in egypt, for instance, you know, the conflicts must not be consistent of arab by arabs.

so i think these are -- these are made mistakes. but these particular discussions i believe came in the right time. it's time that is where the arab is actually going through major changes. and i think coming up with a definition and the cognition for this particular to encompass all of this is very good. here in the united states, i think, you know, the abc initiated of reaching out to other arab countries and particularly sudan for the community and i think we can see the point when helping other people and i can give you one example. because of this newly started relationship of reaching out to the people who are from the arab

world, from sudan, somalia, from the arab league and not included, you know, armenian and we can see when we do that. for example, they were able to bring because of the relationship and the former assistant teaching that. right. but because of the relationship abc has, abc was able to bring to the american community and to discuss, you know, for one the arab countries. so i think what we plan in this kind of relationship. >> thank you. >> to summarize 30 some years in three minutes, and i wanted to start by saying that when we

talk about -- the most simple question, where are you from, i stutter, sweat, i have no idea whether to answer and what the person wants because i'm american, palestinian, i'm a muslim woman, all of those identities are constantly shifting for me. it even took me a while to narrow down my identities to that part of classification growing up in the childhood, i thought i was black and listened to hip hop, i was very much part of the african-american movement. then i went through my latina phase, trial and error to fig your out where i sit. i remember when i decided wait a minute, i am arab. the palestinian, they want to know more. i'll never forget the conversation in cairo. only the real arabs from yemen and about this discussion. there's the arab and arabized.

palestinians are not arab. what? i just got to being arab. it's too confusing. with my age, i am all of the above. and different things, you know, today it's abc. i feel super arab. when i'm working out on issues i feel very strong like women. that's my identity that trumps. i think the one part encompasses is a woman and human rights activist and really being able to use the different parts to tap in to other people suffering and the idea of justice. that's the real strong thing that being palestinian taught me. access to justice is more important than anything else. i remember being in the middle east, i've worked for the past six years in iraq and afghanistan, and i was just in a trip to libya. people would say to me, you know, at the beginning very hostile in terms of what are you doing here? ironically, the one part of any identity, i'm growing out of this was my youth.

people didn't want to take me serious as a 20-something person coming overseas. i think even in our arab-american, we have a problem with taking youth seriously. that was the biggest part of my identity. even stronger than my gender that i felt i had to overcome in the community. when i would meet, people say palestinian, why are you talking about iraq? people were saying why are you sneer i think the ability for us to transcend boundaries and talk about justice and activism can be extremely powerful. i think it's something that i'd like to see more of our communities being able to do. >> whenever i discuss, it's really commit call to start with the baseline that race and ethnicity are both social construction. they are not objective, rigid, construct. there are more ideas and more

constructs that are shifted, evolved, shaped over times. that is very much the case for what it means for the arab-americans. especially at a time like today where we have so much social fluidity with what's happening. but also with what's happening with, you know, certain stereotypes of arabs, you know, certain images of arabs being deconstructed with more democratic images arising from the region. it's really critical, i think, to first of all understand that race and ethnicity is something that evolves and shifts and changes over time. and the encouraging element about that is that that kind of dynamism -- [microphone squeaks] >> that kind of dynamic activities allows for a more embracing composition, where we

at home it's key for us to really hone in and integrate the new communities that share the same, you know, fundamental linguistic parallels, and same historical, and one thing i'd like to address maybe with your line of questioning is historically speaking here in arab-america, there's been a lot of racial gay keepers in our communities. organizations like this one, adc, other organizations have had a more narrow, definition of what it means to be arab. it's been levinstein centric and to allow new communities to be involved and part of the experience and to be integral voices in what it means to be arab-american. >> thank you. there we go. question where are you from?

>> i'm from detroit. >> yeah. >> i'm actually mexican. i just wanted a marketing scheme. so i went to the arab route. i've known -- first of all, i want to give phrase and honor to the adc for inviting me here. it's a pleasure to be on the panel with all of the smart people. smarter than me. and now that i've known forever, thanks for bringing me back, full circle, warren david who's included me. i'm not politically active. although i was placed as a political sort of figure i guess by default because being arab and muslim you are just political. whether you like it or not. [laughter] >> no, because i do stand up

comedy, started out as an actor. people would say, oh my god, you are a political comedian. i don't have any political jokes. no, because you are arab and muslim, it makes you political. you watch too much cnn is what you do. but i started out as an actor almost 20 years ago. i made a great living playing terrorists and cab drivers and then i was frustrated by that, i wanted a voice and i got into stand up comedy about 15 years ago and for those of you that don't know a little bit about the background of our comedy group, we used to be in a show called the axis of evil comedy tour. it's right around of time president bush coined the phrase access -- axis of evil.

we put comedy tour on the end. and to kind of echo what everybody hears on the panel, having a voice and identity. :

>> what seems to be the challenge between bringing together the different american communities particularly the north african community i mean, hysterically to deal with the historic perspective and the relationship and why we're we stand now and why the challenges >> [inaudible] help to bring the arab-american community together particularly from palestine and that part of the world particularly maybe because of the middle east where the arab americans come together on these issues, so that is one reason that you see in east

africa br not heavily involved in the arab-american movement here in the united states. but i think there is an opportunity that should change, in effect because what we see here as an arab-american community if we are able to bring people from north africa and the east africa to this kind of gathering i think we will accomplish a lot because, you know, because of the changes happening right now in the arab world and sharing so critical here but it is the challenges we are facing here as an arab-american the forces are active on the air american institutions, i should say, and that actually should change

because it is critical for us to come together and discuss issues pertaining to that particular people from the particular anger and whirled and i talked also to other arab institutions to bring sudanese americans and do a roundtable discussion on the particular issues so we can benefit from the arab americans from different parts of the world. >> thank you. just for reference the region he is alluding to we hope the special envoy to sudan at the hotel in northern virginia for me it was an experience. it was a little over 300 people, and i probably was the only arab american in the room but it was one of the first times ever for abc that was not advertised in

the community and put forth for the sudanese american community and to see that. a quick follow-up question to what you said where you went from african-americans to arab-americans and what was the moment where you said this is why an? >> can i answer the first question too real quickly? because i think one of the things we carried over from our parents who emigrated over is the lack of institution building and it's important element for us to be addressing in terms of the creation of an institution means we have to be engaging with communities and making the institution relevant. the id we of this institute why aren't people participating are customer isn't necessarily always the best route.

my background is specifically capacity building for institutions. i've always felt frustrated with institutions that represent the arab-american community because we forget strategic planning and membership and all of these issues and that is one of the times it is hard to bring everyone together and it's simply not relevant and then we try to do too much. so the focus is are we issued overseas, civil rights, representing what the common and that can't happen without a national dialogue and the temptation always skips that part when it comes to institutions. now, i think that what flat for me is i will never be won and i think you would be very unfair for me to think that i'm just an arab. i grew up in this house, i had a huge influence on me being in south carolina really played a role in terms of the y yemen and five value for the neighborhood

and be an american come with being a woman and i think the only time i was able to increase the arabism and bich stopped trying to make that identity and just increase the multiculturalism and accepted that it's consistently shifting and then i had a much stronger level of comfort with myself. >> thank you. given your background and experience, not only dialogue within the community, but with other minority communities, and this has been an area how important it is this for us not only the benefits of coalition building but how does it benefit us in helping identify who we are? >> you asked a question about what the gal position and mobilization of the unconventional groups that are part of the american community that have been integrated and i think a proceeding issue that

should be addressed in the institution building to be honest and candid arab-americans by and large we don't mix much with other communities. we are an insular community. we represent things like university building and things of that nature. and we tend to hang out with our own. we don't have crossed racial cross ethnic mobility so that this institution building as a moot point. the issues and symptoms of what qualified ethnic elite is on and arrogance and i think it would be because of the problems and the crises the air as have been horrible and it's a core example of that. it's racial profiling post-9/11 the latino american community for a decade upon decade and they wanted allies but those communities like washington help

me now. you guys were not helping us and when from day 19p m. you come to our defense and -- before we internally have an honest discourse debate within our community, coalition building can be had on a very valuable level. [applause] >> because it's true. even artists to growing up in hollywood to get the arab-american community to integrate with other races it's like no we are going to circle our wagons and do it our way the black community can do it their way and the asian community can do things that isn't the whole idea about the inclusion and not

exclusion so when you include other races that's when you're going to have that learning experience. when we used to our axis of evil comedy tour it was a middle eastern based true if you couldn't few white glackin in our group because it didn't make sense why would we have a white guy in the axis of evil. so when our group split up and went on our own ways created a new troupe called just like us based on a movie i just made about showing arabs and muslims on that side of the world and the comics that went on the tour to lebanon and egypt and saudi and white and black and italian and german american and greek canadian and we made it more diverse and to work a lot better now you have international dialogue not just air and center

and that's not to say that i'm not proud of being arrogant muslim. i very much am but within our community we already know about each other so why don't we extend the olive branch to other communities and religions so they get to feel like they are part of it? whenever a community or culture excludes then you isolate yourself and so it's hard to circle back and say can you help us now? it's like what you said earlier we were there. you weren't paying attention. >> coalition building, that's just a fact. i just want to give you a specific it simple. last year when the controversy around part 51 of the increased level and the attack on arabs and muslims, we actually created

a coalition that includes all of the organization's, the u.s. conference, the council of churches, all of the organizations in just one coalition and standing with american muslims and other muslims uphold american values so that is the coalition that actually provide a voice to america. actually most in that particular event we had last year before the anniversary of 9/11 changed the discourse year. >> i had a quick follow-up question with the gentleman said. sudanese americans having light skin, the arabic-language, what challenges does the younger generation face and other

challenges -- discrimination real on both sides of the fence? wanting to be involved with the community and then experienced racism. >> we see these things you actually learned them at home and we see this particular problem you just mentioned is not here in the united states only but actually you can see that in the major arab league conference meeting as well. and you don't see that part of the problem in the arab world. they might not see it necessarily -- you can see some of these arab countries in a sedan or somalia in the arab league you don't feel that they are fully recognized members. they are a member but you don't see them as such and this is

something that you can see that. when i get in any discussions from the arab world i never paid sudan. i just want to be clear. we don't even mention, so i think this is a problem that really needs and i think abc and because the arab-american communities because the way the united states structure and input will of diversity i think we have the opportunity off to pertain that as such, a perception that when you say arab, we should define that a rabkin be different and a completely different ways. if you are from the arab world, you are an arab.

and that should be what we talk about. >> i just want to be a little brief and challenging some of the things said at the end and i think it to say cut for discussion and i wonder how much is generational. so how much has changed with the degeneration because i know that my group is very inclusive and has gone beyond the old discussions in terms of who should be included and who shouldn't and also recognize that what is to get tribute to the activists who've come from before and really paved the half, so i think that has changed, that tone has changed and when we are able to go beyond and say let's recognize there has to be changed. huge amounts of where we need to go. but i also wonder without institutions how the state is going to be created. to really be able to challenge that way of thinking through the generation as well so we know where we need to be put to be able to challenge that way of thinking to be inclusive, to be

more importantly relevant i think you need -- it doesn't have to be formalized institutions but where you can have that dialogue and talk about progress moving forward otherwise you're going to have is a lot of disenfranchised and alienated clicks through the country. >> that's where art comes in. >> it's festive events or conventions like this that bring people together and i know your point and people trying to voice their opinion and you don't get anywhere and to create some sort of cultural -- and i know it happens -- others involved in celebrating the cultures through certain art forms like i said music through, the literature, film making, that opens up a dialogue and handshake and there has to be some sort of monetized

platform that can communicate with and i agree. >> the conditions have to be in the group for instance of the institution is only provides of leadership what good is that doing to the sudanese and nigerians from these americans, so why thing is the grassroots communities that have been disenfranchised and marginalized for decades so they will find again institutions that are effectively until recently have done a very poor job reaching out to those communities, so i believe in the core issues within our community and second, build those grassroots people's time is on the ground in that

regard. >> institutions that exist today engagement itself can be -- and a couple of years ago i was working for michigan. >> it's being an african-american [inaudible] african-american community detroit is 90% black. i encountered going into these communities because they perceive affirmative action to be a black issue and why their lives to talking a vote affirmative action, juneau. and there was a lot of swearing and people calling me out and this and that. but over a couple of months people started to -- the residents and communities that were largely black. i walk in black churches people knew me by name.

>> [inaudible] [laughter] he's a brother, not that kind of brother. [laughter] that's the kind of work that hasn't been done recently and i think that if we have the kind work that he's done to build those bridges in the communities that aren't your largely palestinian the egyptian, syrian, so forth. but the clouds have to be more representative of what we perceived america should be one day. >> from the institution side of things the coalition is part of the leadership conference and given the right but even within those there is an attempt to reach out to the different groups and one thing when we do approach to the different

communities, the arab world comprises 22 different parts, 22 different pieces like the engine to rival of hawken to an algerian or lesbian organization and say i'm lebanese telling you how your arab but we try to look of commonalities and come together and when the relationship is strong enough then we will move what are the differences between health we could address them but i think one question i heard as they came up through this minority system and as are we arab-american and, middle eastern north african. if we had an imaginary box on the former everybody pushes for can we every but it's going to

say so what are the actions the would-be -- >> brown to respond to the legal status should be reflected and arab-americans have been others. we are clearly not white. however you want to classify it groups that have certain affinities but not experience the irony and americans are turkish american would plead to think they are american. >> it's interesting i think just to the institution building point i think we need to work on

our existing institutions and make them more diverse, and i think, you know, i would think our -- something like if we would elect the arabs from north africa or east africa or from the state we don't see any of our lives from the state your. we need to have kind of a roundtable discussions in our own existing institutions to talk about this issue and then we can start to be more inclusive and the institution will naturally come petraeus pnac i have a question for you in terms of how much is this an abc, on? most of the institutes chaim part of which is an organization of women's domestic violence is a very broad coalition who have the egyptians got profound is

half iraqi and it's a huge multi-cultural element. so i'm wondering how much of it is within this institute but because it is not happening here doesn't mean it is not happening in america. >> i know in the arab-american community, we come and i think we put a lot of thought and research into the subject before we begin working. so it's not like was said we want to go and meet with the sudanese. no, we want five from six months researching members and researching data. we looked at things such as from our surveys, individuals, palestinians, what are their core issues, try to see the core issue for each country and try to see with the commonality is. and what we at the end said what could abc offer to this community that would in turn the would appreciate discussing the

referendum. it's been providing legal support from the legal department. so you can see the arab-american community itself is very diverse. there's many issues we could agree on and could disagree on even within the same village. this happened in lebanon where somebody will be arguing over [inaudible] we want to avoid these conversations. we don't want to go down that road. but for us there was a professor about [inaudible] who helped us tremendously in the did excellent work on this issue about the identity issue but the number one thing we have to do is find what sources, what resources do we have available that we could give to these

different communities. and one by one we began meeting with the local command the groups, the local council, local chamber of commerce of these organizations, and in no way did we say we are from d.c.. we said we want to learn from you and we want you to be on our chapters, and around 90 we had a problem with the yemen american community. they have a very large yemen american population in these retreat they are becoming their own little area. so i remember going in 20, 21-years-old. putting that flaw years they said what are you doing and this and that and we began talking and ultimately what we decided to do is a certain number of positions open for the yemenis

americans. and i'm telling you that now one of the biggest supporters it was true that outreach beginning in the initial putting them on the board and telling them so they and power to the institution and by empowering themselves they empowered abc. so it felix and abc phenomenon because we are the only. >> and now the moderator again. >> sorry. >> another question for you you mentioned how can we use art to progress the challenges. among each other. >> if you see it more and more everyday. there's a lot of film makers

talking so when and on muslim goes to see a film about an arab family of a film festival that has american films in and oftentimes they change their mind light i forgot the name of the movie a palestinian woman who comes so there was a great film and a lot of people -- >> when a lot of americans saw that movie the connected to it because it was an american story i'm just going to throw this out as an example. miss usaf last year from detroit. [laughter]

and lebanese. miss usa was a red for the first time. yeah, you can clap for her. [applause] but that shot a lot of people looked because they see era when -- arab women don't have a voice and she came out guns ablazing and that set a lot. you're starting to see the arab, the festival's and up-and-coming arab communities. [applause] these festivals and, you know, jordan has a comedy team and saudi arabia has a comedy scene and egypt, you know, everybody's starting to use not just comedy but literature, films. dr. james zogby has a new book

out, arab stories. we can tell our own stories among our group but unless you are serving publicly, who knows. one question i get asked all the time is, you know, do you blame hollywood for portraying arabs the way they portray arabs? i say no i don't blame hollywood ppi blame us. it's our fault. it's our responsibility. we have the resources, the vision, the story is, we have the money. arabs have money. a relative as a convenience store and money under his mattress or something. and after -- before september 11th we never used to have arabs come to our comedy shows and after september 11th, everyone came to the comedy shows. so everybody has the story. and the media is such a powerful tool. if you sit there and dr. jack

shaheen exposed hollywood and showed i think 1200 some odd clips of cartoons, tv shows and films where they only portrayed arabs, middle eastern and muslims in a negative light. you never saw the arab dhaka on friends, you never saw an air of a doctor on the er. you never saw a arab dhaka on the "seinfeld." so why should we wait around for the media monster to do it when we have the ability to do it? and i feel when the rest of america and the world says look at these arabs telling their own story that's fascinating. i didn't know that or look up the story about that person or the cook and dance and breed and eat just like us. and for whatever art form you decide to portray that through i believe is more powerful than what a politician has to say.

[applause] speed to confine me at twitter at ahmed connolly. [laughter] how often has that crossed the intersection and is there a distance between being a muslim woman, what conflict there? >> it's a good question. i think that most people are comfortable between secular or religious divides, and when we and i think the arab-american community is one of the first to bridge that and it doesn't have to be polarized. there's a way to be religious and the liberal and secular in terms of legal rule of law and i feel that that's very hard for most people to understand and i've often been told specifically because i work on women's rights. i work on women's rights

globally so i've often been told is that a contradiction. you are a muslim but working on women's rights, how can you be all of those at once, and again i think it is being able to portray that it does different things. i had a similar theme that i've done a lot of policy briefs and academic papers but it wasn't until i wrote my book in baghdad and did it from a very simple narrative style and most of the people who ended up feeling the word of arad or muslim and most were children of soldiers, so a lot of iraqi soldiers mothers, wives and dollars e-mail to me after seeing the book we don't know what's going on to be one little girl literally set of sheets in decree e-mail by saying i would like to imagine my father is one of the soldiers helping you so it is true it resume does the narrative and

simple format. a friend of mine from new york who is marketing and done a lot of literature he's an agent as well said the gulf kmart and wal-mart when you're riding and that is the best advice i've got >> if i can echo what you said. you wrote the book about death in arabs. most of the world, they do think that the arab world is just a desert or strictly bombed out buildings or terrorist camps and all that and when we made this traveled through dubai and so many americans would come out of the film and say if i had the money i would take a trip to the middle east tomorrow because the film may want to go see it in

lebanon you can go down in egypt and pick up trinkets and stuff like that there's a harley-davidson chapter didn't realize there's a community. the news that shows that so by showing that strictly through literature or film or television it's such a broad explanation because growing up people always ask me what is arab and muslim? and i still have to explain and i did a whole explanation to another person and let us a comfort to my house and i will tell you all at night and that is the beauty of art you can capture an audience in one swoop and continue doing that rather than doing it individually.

>> given what you've gone through, how different do you see these, how different do not you see in the arab-american community across the country particularly you know how the community in detroit is compared to others and what role does that play in a bottle is persian region but other generations? >> it's a very diverse among ethnic national alliance and socioeconomic lines from detroit it's a working class and poor communities which from the statistical kind of image being upper-middle-class by and large in the country are very financially stable and affluent,

and i think socioeconomics in many regards shows how different communities from who they are ethnically and racially but more affluent tend to want to shift, align themselves with the legal being the caucasian for access to privileged for purposes of political influence, purposes of trial and to achieve the economic status whereas where i grew up i have stronger affinity for and for being a person of color given that a lot of the economic challenges i face i have a stronger sense of camaraderie and a community with african-americans in the latino americans who face the economic without growing up so determining and shaping how to free ourselves in terms of who we are as a legal people in the

state's socioeconomics has to be addressed and we have to focus on the working class in the church, paterson new jersey, chicago, los angeles and so forth and they cannot be marginalized when imagining and finally designing and designating where americans are. >> and i think for the record when my family came here in 1978 and 1980, 81, one of the government homes for the folks wheat lived upstairs and were causing trouble for-years-old at the time to have an impact on your identity but it is that upbringing where the communities are facing 68% of the somali americans in minnesota and only

23% graduate high school so what impact or what role could not only the organizations like adc but other organizations in isolation or, you know, assisting all of these communities in the u.s.? >> that is a very important subject actually. i visited the community a number of times. there are about 60,000 somali and about 40,000 of them in columbus ohio, and this particular community is actually facing problems of integration so they are not able to integrate into a larger state and that's where they needed help. they faced major problems and discrimination in housing.

our issue to integrate with bullying and little things and i think other institutions like adc need to come forward and find a way to help and not only an institution that belongs to the arabs and muslims but i think again the question of coalition building. we do not need even though the communities came here before us, the jewish community went to difficulty and the arab-american community went through that and so if we -- to help now to

integrate i think that is very crucial and we actually started doing that and having round tables with a number of institutions to help them how to integrate having a number of round tables within the government with the federal government and not with the somali leaders but how they can help them better integrate and understand their rights. >> the past two years i've been working with iraqi refugees coming to the country and also syria and egypt. it's just recognizing the communities are dealing with a lot of karma and beyond the karma of war it was just the idea of coming to a new country so in addition to the integration, sometimes been in an environment which is the same, an environment where the same language and dialect the

refugees want to be among other iraqi is is not necessarily. it just test to be providing the right counseling which again we often want to get moving the american dream. so i think that is an added element important factor in. >> we even talked about america in the muslim part but i think it isn't melting any more. when i went to minneapolis i visited the besso wally communities so i see them all over and then when you go into the building basically you are in somalia. and also you can see that and other communities as well. in california, chinese communities and others so you see that and i think maybe we

need to talk about this more. >> one community in detroit has $9 billion of peer-to-peer transactions each year, $10 from me, so it is definitely something that is a good trait of the community. before the questions and answers one quick question for everybody. i want to ask to tell us a little bit more about the film that's opening. >> well, funny you should ask. [laughter] >> we are coming in 2007 the of gone to the middle east and the axis of the volume we tour through jordan, dubai, lebanon, egypt and kuwait and shot as a tv show you do 27 shows and five countries and 30 days and there

was on tv and then we became more well-known. we went back and did a tour but we didn't get to shoot it as a documentary. the third year, three is a charm, third year we decided to mix it up and take international comics, so there's whinney cummingses' one of the first americans female caucasian comics who came with us and they well-known british comedian and tommy davidson from in living color. a lot of comics you would recognize and we went on this whirlwind tour. the movie -- i made the movie for a couple of reasons. one, part of the tour was the actor vince bond who called the wild west, the show and be on

the tour to was a sort of inside peek as to what it's like to make a documentary about a comedy tour so it was almost like going to school for free so that kind of gave me the inspiration, but the driving force behind it is when i go to the middle east and perform these comedy shows i come back to america and my american friends would say what are you doing in the middle east i would say, the show's but the ask which military base. [laughter] >> right. >> i would say it wasn't a u.s. tour, it wasn't in a letter tour for the troops it was for arabs and they were shocked, like in english? and i'm like jack, we do it in english and they are like and they get it? >> yeah, they get it, the argument being spirited [laughter] >> the internet, they are on the facebook and poking me and tagging me everyday. [laughter] so i was frustrated again going back and bring the question about the error of plus, when

answering the questions of two arabs and muslims laugh on that side of the world. [laughter] so come out pure frustration, about four days before we launched the tour, my business partner suggested we film so i scribbled down and hired to camera guy is one was in the back of the room over there and is now my producer, raised your hand. [applause] 6 feet three white guy from little rock arkansas. [laughter] i said you want to go to the middle east with me to do this documentary and before i finished fourth documentary he said yet. we are worried for his life, they are afraid something might happen in the middle east and i was like she will be fine, she will be fine. but he shot amazing footage, 200 hours of footage cut into a 72 minute documentary. 25 film festivals, premiere at the tribeca film festival, and

it's a documentary about the celebration of culture and comedy and family and we just did a deal with line in eight films it's going to come out on video on demand don't download it i know everyone likes to download. laughter to if you have a dvd everyone has a dvd. but we are self releasing it in theaters here in d.c. as a landmark on history and its opening around the country so wherever you guys are cumbersome francisco it's going to rollout in the theaters there, so we encourage you to watch the movie because it is an educational peace and love of non-arabs and muslims leave the movie saying i didn't know that about the middle east, thank you for sharing that. and we tricky with the comedy but we also have a message in the movie so any support would be great. [applause]

just one quick question everybody maybe take 30 seconds or so. what does it mean to be an arab? >> you got to answer quick. >> i don't know. i mean, it's part of my identity and i guess it means just being aware of the part of life no one can hold a gun, i don't know, what am i supposed to say? >> for me it's [inaudible] [laughter] >> i guess you know what it is? i guess the one thing it is his family, you know, all the experience i've had is the era of the kind. when i was in libya, people went insane, like from hotels, people

checked out, come live with us, it's that overwhelming hospitality which in america my love for private space sometimes that is what arab needs is overwhelming hospitality. [laughter] [applause] >> again, arab-american i think, you know, it means to meet the recognition of my really my background and it helps in the way that you can, you know, communicate easily with a member of countries that speak arabic, but i think what i would like to see if i can answer the question differently, but i would like to see is that really speaks arabic

it should be considered arab because really the arabic is the tonya and if you can speak arabic, you know, you should be considered arab. >> thank you. [applause] >> i have a question for you, actually. [laughter] stomach what we ask if you were in arab what would you want to be? >> i would want to be dead. [laughter] >> i guess the biggest thing about being an arab i think the family is big, even bigger than the families and the strong community a broad sense of community. what does it feel to be am arab? [laughter] >> to kill the infidel.

[laughter] >> the was a joke. some are like maybe he is serious. [laughter] i think the thing that makes me most proud of being an arab is sharing my culture with the rest of the world, and that's i think a lot of reasons why i don't know what happens preconception but do you choose to be an arab or just born arab? some people say you actually have a choice before you enter your family you say i'm going to be a arab if you come out and are like i messed up. [laughter] can i get something else on the menu? [laughter] but then you come out in this world and to our air and so you have to deal with it and the best way to deal with it is to share with other people and explain, and we do have the responsibility to explain. if we just -- if we sit there and deny our culture, then the rest of the world will deny us. i think somebody was touching on

an earlier with the escalation factor. i have a lot of friends who, like after september 11th they would introduce themselves with somebody and be like what's your name? my name is mike. >> your name is mohammed. so, holding on to that is important. holding on to the culture and sharing it is the most important thing. >> thank you. >> we will open up to just -- [applause] >> just a couple questions. we have two minutes so we can take a couple we don't want to turn on. [inaudible] >> we can hear you. >> okay, great. and from palestine thank you. i'm a big fan of you and the

area. i have a two-part question. it was mentioned in the beginning. i have a lot of friends that are lebanese that they don't identify themselves as arabs. i would like to know each of your thoughts on that and what could you address that if we should. the next question is not all lebanese, some. i actually have great lebanese friends. the next question is on the consensus form we don't have that arab box. how can we put that on the form and why isn't it on the form to begin with? i would like you to address that as well. thank you. >> who wants to answer that? >> i have lebanese. [laughter] >> together there's one. [laughter]

>> first of all you can't force somebody to identify one way. if somebody identifies what everett is the one to identify with your not going to want to integrate individuals for being an american anyway. i mean there are complex cultural factors that determine why somebody chooses not to identify as arab. now a lot of lebanese for a sample of the backlight of med was saying. it was debated in the sociological kind of debates so it's really an individual decision but that's the idea is the idea or notion of being there and notional or cultural, is it of linguistic or political or is that genealogical?

my perspective is kuran there. [laughter] but again individuals who have the subject of right to identify the way they want to identify and as far as the census it's a historic. there's a lot of history behind and at one point we were on the census form and you could have a whole other panel on why to change to white on the census form and here we are backed as arab-americans' again but at adc we are taking steps to address this issue and we are asking for different government programs. the film itself as legislative and only an act of congress will get the form. maybe we have a strong relationship with of the department of commerce and the census department, its something

that's going to take a few years and will take time, but when we get there i think we will and that's the discussion of what will be put in that box because that is the point is the phase we are in right now, that is the question we are being asked now and we don't think we would be asked that question if we were not moving forward so we will keep our fingers crossed. >> to vote, too, right? >> i would just add on to that if you look at the the iraqi constitution process arbuckle too was a huge debate because a lot of iraqi is inside the country did not want to be called an arab state and they see themselves as iraqi is and with the referendum and egypt we've got many article to controversy. a lot of people would argue and others would say they are sudanese so it's recognizing that it is a very deep controversial not only political

historical but social concept and has influences back home as much as year and we should resist the urge to say you are aware of because there's a lot more dynamic that goes on. >> a couple of comments and a quick question at the end for clarification. in respect to being in arabic we have the ethnic and racial and i would like to comment about it simplified by somebody that speaks arabic our culture's represent a vast geography and different background from morocco to egypt to kuwait to do by recently, but i grew up watching him go to the family restaurant and share his culture and love of life and music with a community in southern california so very appreciative of that and in the city ago we were not a large population of arab-americans so there were

galvanized by a tightly knit group that was what the kid a professional, a good business owners to establish a strong adc that were instrumental in creating good common allies with different minority groups prior to 9/11 and we see that on campus and in the broad sense, but my looking at recently there's no common thread. our institutions are quite weak and in the culture where it is the hub of the popular culture in the media and has the broader reach as ahmed's blight we have a missing link. so we still have to connect the dots in los angeles, and we have over different communities that are part of the institutions or strictly lebanese. >> what is the question? >> they were connected with, you know, the adc was good at bringing them in hundred common blanket. our new institutions need to do that. generation has lost out in cyberspace. how is it getting connected, how

do we bring them in and contribute to the institutions in a positive manner? >> the newer generation? >> generation why i would say generation x was moved in with their families. >> well [inaudible] from the arabs feet. [laughter] and really what adc is utilizing is a social network. facebook, twittered, just to use the under generation, and you want to talk generation of the family working at adc and it just shows there's going to be different mindsets and different ideas but we have a full-time staff person doing our social networking and social media. very important. >> some don't even print fly years anymore.

unless you really want but really it's social networks, facebook, our advertising money now facebook advertising where you could be so it's definitely something -- >> my question wasn't just adc, in general any recommendations? >> arab american professionals. >> i think the question we have to ask is if there is so much out there and so many different voices how are we going to make ourselves or our cause or identity relevant to the generation why, and it really is engaging. live in to so many panels in the last two months analyzing the youth, but like the last panel someone tried to say representing the youth and by 46i would love to be a youth but i no longer in. [laughter] where are the youth and why

aren't they on the stage answering the question? >> i'm still young. [laughter] >> i have a complex question to ask which covers a little bit of all of you and when you said. i think there's two things we need to look at. first, what is happening in the arab world like an immigrant brings a lot of there by disease and a lot of their ideas, values to the united states and wherever they emigrate to come and so i think that speaks a little bit to what you're saying how some of them show up. my question is have you noticed as i did that prior to 9/11 and it is generational i think that is quite right, that the older generation of arab-americans gets water to velte from the wanted to be the smelting and they were scared because

whatever they came from, everything has to be considered, but after 9/11, i don't know if you agree, but they're seems to be a decision about how their active, some have become even more invisible and mike and john and paul, what ever, and others like me and my daughter who's an actress and playwright want to be more visible, we want to show up because like a lot of you said especially ahmed is if we don't show up we can't expect other people to do it for us so i would like to hear if you saw a difference after 9/11. ..

>> a lot of arab-americans never had the ability, but i also think a lot of the arab-americaning who went the other way who were pro-arab were on the forefront of the artistic community whereas the average arab-american who worked a nine to five job who had a show didn't want to be on the camera or stage or have their name on paper or lights. they were more accepting to sit

back and be invisible and quietly support, but it was like your daughter, and, you know, the people on this panel, and whoever had something to say. you know, we're the ones who are like -- you know, i was asked to change my name several times. my agent said i should change my name to rick. [laughter] >> does this look like a rick? [laughter] >> i think that the other way of blending in was to be the good muslim or the good arab, and there was a temptation. i would be a millionaire if they said where are the moderate arabs and limbs. they don't fit your stereotype. state department meetings and if you didn't have a beard, you were not the arab representing the community, just an exception. i think that's where the momenting came in, a desire to be the good arab to present the

good faith and the principles and challenging, the beauty of america has awless been accountability. we were trying so hard to proven our american that being american is holding the government accountable, and i think the other issue that really reemerged is that was the official handing over the baton. it was the younger generation who spoke without an english accent who say this is not making sense. they are the ones who stepped forward center stage and said i can challenge you and not feel less of an american and i won't accept you to make the claim that i'm less of an american. [applause] >> and i would answer that actually one, you know, i think the arab-american, the

muslim-americans are faced with the question whether we wanted to be integrated or assimilated, and, you know, that's a political corruption and because our system lives on fears, i mean, if we are assimilated, we would be accepted by the larger american community, but if we're integrated and keep our culture in the american society, but kept our, you know, our identity as an ish from a -- arab from a different world, that could be presenting a danger to the larger american community. i think that was where the question needs to be answered, and even that question is generational. people who are third generation, we don't answer it, you know, a different way, and third generation have their own answer. >> we're running short, but i want to say real quick what our research found. i don't need to go back to 9/11,

but just to go back to the current arab uprising. post-9/11, there was this big identity question. are we arab, muslim, arab, muslim. there was a point of discussion. all the sudden you see the terms arab and muslim are one, and the community really addressed both issues one way. the popular uprisings though and what began happening, the arab identity came back slowly. that's the main reason we have the panel. what's happened in egypt, tunisia, libya, sierra, everywhere, you have arab-americans, christians, muslims, regardless of religion saying we're arab, these are our people. the younger generation, we just began receiving phone calls from students saying i'm half lebanese, i want to be a part of

this. these uprisings really have had a significant positive impact on arab-american identity more so than the impact of 9/11, and i think that's the main reason our work really grew since february. >> great, and it's not only the identity, but until the uprising, until to increase the level of the arab-american community engagement with the civic institutions. you know, i can give a number of examples, but two weeks ago for the first time the yes , ma'am these-american -- yes , yemen-american community came here for the first time to meet to does, you know, the issues. they 20 people came, they have never actually met with u.s. government so i think uprising, i should hope, will appear more

in sighing -- civil engagement. >> i'm from michigan, originally from egypt, and almost mind read my question. my question was about the identity, the religious identity versus the national identity because in mushes, and i actually am seeing that sometimes i notice that the community is trying to identify more with the origin, you know, religious background rather than the national common arab background, and you can sense that even in the funding sources. you know, the mosque or the church, they tend to be able to generate more fundraising. >> it's easier to raise money

for god regardless of religion. we can talk a little more, but the question of religious identity. i mean, it did play a role, and a lot of arab-american, from the research we saw they tend to say they're a muslim first. that was prior to the arab spring. when we began -- went back to the same people we interviewed and did research on. it was unanimous, we're arab, across the board. i feel that event really propelled the identity, you know, to the fore front. >> i think from a personal experience, i've always felt the arab institutions are so highly rooted in secularism that automatically people -- i always joked that me and my grandmother were the only ones in the audience, and i think that's changed. i feel overtime, and i've been

involved with abc since i was 10. i've seen it grow and change. i think likewise, the reaction was, a lot of people who go to islamic events who are not practicing in the way they should be were not welcomed. it's the issue and how do you become inclusive. i think it's very hard for women being arab and muslim. it's hard to be women and independent, and that's the question, where do you follow the line? most people doesn't fall into either extremes, but middle ground. >> try to be quick. >> yes, thank you. i want the panel to address two challenges. one is take off from it seems like when the uprising came up, many of us became proud arabs to that point of the first challenge. what is it in the identity that i want to emphasize to my children to have them say i am an arab. they don't even speak arabic.

their mon is an american. what is it? i don't want to wait for another uprising or whatever it is. i need to know what the substance is for them to say, yes, i'm an arab, and i'm proud. second challenge, the thing is that this fellow here talking about more comforting to actually identify with the religious identity, it is rampant of a problem in the sudan and calls themselves not arabs and many regions in our own arabs say no, i'm not an arab. look, it's not just the question of choice that i'm a proud arab, but i'm responsible to have me provide the atmosphere for people to say, yes, i'm an arab, comfortably, but i'm british or

whatever it is. that is lacking right now. >> the question, because sorry, we really are -- >> these are the two challenges i want to address. >> i mean, first of all, there's a lot of ethnic minorities in the arab world. the wash world is very broad. you can't impose a racial designation on a people who choose not to be arab. if they come from a different lineage and have their own proud systems and culture, they can choose to latch on to who they want to be. i don't think imposing arabness on somebody who doesn't want to be arab is the way to go. i think the one -- >> i said it before -- [inaudible]

>> republican leaders conference took place last week. one of the speakers was tennessee congresswoman blackburn. he -- her remarks are about 15 minutes. [cheers and applause] >> well, it is absolutely fantastic to be here with you in new orleans for the southern

republican leadership conference, and i am thrilled that we are holding this during the centennial of ronald reagan's birth. [applause] those values he worked around, faith, family, freedom, hope, opportunity, those are the values that he took with him to washington in 1980. those are the values that we need to take back to washington today, and we need to remember that those are the values that need to be in the white house in november 2012, and we need to get out there and win this one for the gepper. [applause] the american people really did a great job getting a head start on this last year. look at what transpired. i think that you all sent a

message to the political class in washington, d.c. that was a pretty good lesson in civics and limited government and the us constitution, and when it turned out that some of those democrats failed on that final exam in november, you, the people of this country, gave them a one-way ticket home. thank you. [cheers and applause] because of all of your great work, we picked up seats in the senate. we took control of the u.s. house of representatives, and we gave nancy pelosi the title that she so richly deserved, minority leader. [cheers and applause] we sent president obama a message that change had come again, and guess what, folks? it's going to come again next

year in 2012. we want a new president of the united states. we need to begin this journey today because we don't have a single minute to lose. i work -- our country can't afford four more years of president obama's liberal policies. he is a president that is too expensive to afford. by nearly every measure, by nearly every measure, the try is in worse shape than it was when he took office. gallon of gas? doubled in price. unemployment? over 9% in 28 months. home values are down. obamacare has put our health care system on life support. so-called financial reform has made too big to fail the law of

the land. the epa has -- the epa -- there you go, has short circuited our nation's energy policy. the fcc has nationalized the internet, and most dangerly of all, the federal debt has ballooned putting our country on a course to financial and economic ruin. meanwhile, the chair of the democrat national committee has said that obama has terned the economy -- turned the economy around. well, here is a news flash. obama has not turned the economy around. he has turned the economy upsidedown, and according to the

latest polls, less than one-third of the american people think that we are on the right track, but i am hopeful. i'm an optimist because to me, that says two-thirds of the american people are ready for a new direction. [applause] let me tell you a little bit about where you come from. my district in tennessee is a great barometer for what's going on in the country. a lot of small towns, farms, two great cities, memphis and nashville, and yes indeed, that does make me truly legitimately a little bit country, and a little bit rock n' roll. [laughter] you know what people tell me? they are so worried.

they are so worried that the american dream is in deep, deep trouble. the next generation is going to have fewer opportunities than we have had, and that the president and the liberal elites in washington just don't get it. you know, i think if you're going to save the american dream, if you're going to preserve it, you have to understand it. i understand it because i have been lucky enough to live it. as a girl growing up on the farm in southern mississippi -- [cheers and applause] as a student working my way through college, as a salesman out knocking on doors in the hot summer sun for 80 hours a week as an entrepreneur, being a wife blessed to be a mother and a

grandmother, i understand that americans don't work hard so that their children have to work harder. we work hard so that our children will have it better. [applause] this next election, the president likes to talk about winning the future. i got to tell you, this next election is not about winning the future for some and losing it for others. it about securing the american dream for all americans, and let's look at specifically what we can do. if we're going to increase our majority in the house, take control of the senate, and win that white house, we need to be the party that stapedes for security in uncertain time, and when you talk about security in

uncertain times, security means a lot of different things. retirement security, job security, financial security, border security, and most importantly of all, securing freedom, and we, as republicans, need to lead on every single one of those. to win in 2012, we do need to be the party of energy security. my dad made a career of selling oil-filled equipment so this topic is something that is pretty close to my heart, and i've seen firsthand how far technology has come over the years, and recently in washington, i have seen firsthand how this administration and the epa gets in the way every sing single time. it seems that what we have is a government out of control. the epa is trying to implement cap-and-trade regulations right now. 928 new regulations.

congress did not pass this. the american people do not want it, and we need to fight against it, and -- [applause] and to make matters worse, the federal government is now moving forwards with plans, their plans to ban the incon descent light lightbulb, and, yes, the lightbulb that you love, ban it, making you use a lightbulb that costs you more money, and when it breaks, is a health health hazard. when it comes to energy policy, i think there is a great solution to this -- four words -- drill here, drill now.

[cheers and applause] to wipe in 2012 -- to win in 2012, we have to be the party that stands for financial security. the chairman of the joints steves of staff says our national debt is the greatest threat to our national security. when i was a little girl, i loved to go to work with my daddy. we passed a used car lot with a sign out front and said we tote the note. [laughter] he explained that one to me and said, baby, don't you ever let anybody tote your note. well, apparently, the federal government did not get that message because we have got nations like china toting our note, and right now, when you look at our publicly traded debt, china owns 25% of that publicly traded debt.

japan, over 20%. the united kingdom, 7%. opec owns 5%, and we know who makes up opec, ecuador, bahrain, iraq, kuwait, uae, algeria, nigeria, saudi arabia, libya, and iran. they own 5% of our debt. let's look at china alone. every day the u.s. government cuts $119 million check in interest to the chinese government. with that, they can purchase two joint strike fighters every single week, and at the end of the year, they have enough money left over to buy a shiny aircraft carrier. by failing to cap our spending,

we are capping our children's future and trading it to the people who own that debt. that is not the future i want for my children and grandchildren, and i know that is not the future that you want for yours either. [applause] we have to be the party of job security if we're going to win. we know government doesn't create jobs. it kills them. the greatest, the greatest epa gin of job creation ever known is the ingenuity of the american spirit. we have to cut red tape, reduce government spending, fire up that ingenuity of the american spirit, and cut taxes. [applause] my -- [applause] my deacon husband has a great line on taxes. i think president obama needs to hear it. my husband likes to say 10%,

good enough for god on sunday, it is absolutely good enough for uncle sam on monday. [cheers and applause] president obama sure did like to stimulate big government with that trillion dollar stimulus bill. only thing i saw out of it was a bunch the green road signs that said reinvestment act. mr. president, we have a new sign for you that stays stop. stop proposing new taxes on small businesses, and stop digging our country deeper and deeper into debt. we want to help america's small businesses hang out in new signs that says help wanted, we are hiring. that's when we know the country is on the road to recovery.

across this country, we've got republican candidates that are beginning to interview for a new job, president of the united states of america. i have to tell you we are an exceptional country, and we deserve an exceptional president of the united states. [cheers and applause] the debating of the issues, some worry that the competition will hurt whomever emerges and gets the nomination. i disdriveway. i think it's going to help. as a former chairman, i learn that competitive primaries always give us a better general election candidate, and we're going to make either him or her, one or the other -- i like it we got hers out there, don't you? we're going to make him or her

the next president of the united states, and you have a major role to play in this because we're never going to get a fair shake from the mainstream media, but we don't need them. [applause] we don't need them. they were not with us in 1980 or 84 or 94 or 2000 or 2010, but the american people were with us then, and they are going to be with us again. [applause] let me tell you how i think it works. the most important news network now is not a television network. it is the you. it is you and your network of friends. and family and co-workers, and this is my call to you today. engaming your network in the issue -- engage your networks in the issues you care about. use social networks or good old-fashioned networks, go door to door, write a letter to the

editor, make a phone call, and set the record straight, and let's give president obama and the liberal elited a lesson in good old-fashioned politics how it should be from the grassroots and the bottom up. [applause] i mentioned earlier that i sold books door-to-door during the summer, and one of the lessons i learns was the more i knew about the product i was selling, the better job i did, so let's do our part to be informed on all of these issues. let's stick to the facts and make certain people realize our conservative values are american values. we are the party that can ensure the american dream during uncertain times. weaver the party that can defend freedom in a dangerous world, and with your help, we're the party that can win big next year. despite all of the challenges that are out there, i am confident in this country's

future and you should be too. anyone who doubts america's future only needs to look at our past. this is the country whose founders fired the shots heard around the world. this is the country whose citizens have chosen to protect liberty in every single generation. this is the country whose free market economy brought about the american dream, and this is the country whose future rests in your hands. let's make our founding fathers proud. let's choose a new course for this country. let's leave our chirp and our grandchildren in better shape. let's get out