Under my reservation, I yield to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), who has played a very important role in making this happen.

Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from Michigan for his leadership on this issue.

Just in the last few days, in my district in Northern Virginia, anti-Arabic graffiti was written at a local high school. We have had an Islamic bookstore that has been vandalized.

The vast majority of American Muslims and Arabs are as appalled at these acts of terrorism as the rest of us. Many of these Muslim and Arab Americans and Sikhs came to escape this type of terrorism in their own countries, and it has come here now. But they have come here, as most of our forbears, for the freedom and the opportunity offered in America. We cannot afford to let the terrorists divide our country between Muslim and Arab and Jews and Christians. We do not want to repeat the mistakes of World War II where we singled out Japanese Americans for discrimination. We need to show that Americans stand together: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others in support of our President and against any type of discrimination. Against any group, discrimination cannot and should not be tolerated.

This resolution affirms our role as leaders in recognizing that no group should be singled out for discrimination simply because they share a common heritage or religious background similar to the terrorists.

I ask that we pass this resolution. Again, I commend the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) for his leadership.

Mr. Bonior. Mr. Speaker, further reserving the right to object, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier).

Mr. Dreier. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding under his reservation.

I want to say that I strongly support this resolution. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) for the leadership that they have shown on this very important issue.

There are few things that outrage me more than the kind of discrimination that was just outlined by the gentleman from Virginia that has taken place. The graffiti that has come up in the wake of Tuesday's tragedy is just horrible, and we need to do everything that we can to ensure that that does not happen. I believe that this resolution should send a very strong signal about the leadership that the United States is going to take in ensuring that this kind of discrimination does not take place.

Just a little more than 12 hours ago, Mr. Speaker, Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, the leader of the North American Islamic Society, gave the opening prayer at the very moving service that most of the Members of this body attended. I believe that his presence at that service that we attended was a very strong signal from President Bush and other leaders in this country that we are not going to tolerate that kind of discrimination which has been described already here and which, frankly, is of concern to me and to others.

Attempts to bring about generalization is something that is very tempting for a lot of people, and I will simply say that we need to caution the American people against that. That is why I chose to stay here when the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis) first mentioned to me the prospect of this resolution. I wanted to voice my very strong support for it.

Mr. Bonior. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Before I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rahall), my good friend who is of Lebanese descent, I want to just say a few words, if the gentleman would permit me.

Like all Americans, Arab Americans, Muslims in America, Sikhs, they have strongly condemned these heinous and outrageous acts that have been perpetrated against America and its people. And like their fellow citizens of all faiths, they have joined in efforts to give blood; they have been parts of vigils around this country; they have conducted their own religious services. They were the firemen and the police that were involved in trying to rescue people in New York City. They are part of what we all are grieving and suffering from so painfully in these last 3 days, 4 days.

So I would say tonight that in the wake of this attack, it is really most unfortunate and sad and outrageous that the Arab American community and the Muslim American community and the South Asian community, the Sikhs particularly, have been targeted with this bigotry that the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis) alluded to, and violence.

Near Chicago, bigots tossed a fire bomb at an Arab American community center. In old town Alexandria, vandals attacked an Islamic bookstore, as the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis) said, and two Virginia mosques received threatening phone calls. In New York, a man tried to run over a Pakistani woman in the parking lot of a shopping mall, accusing her of destroying my country, and the list goes on and on. Many of the children in the schools are fearful because of their religion or because of where their ancestors or families may have come from. Women, Muslim women are fearful about wearing their head coverings in public, as well are Sikhs who have expressed that same concern to me today. It is a serious problem.

I think not only did Muzammil Siddiqi speak today at the service, but Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Archbishop of Washington, spoke as well.

He reminded us. He said this. He reminded all Americans in prayer that: "We must seek the guilty and not strike out against the innocent, or we become like them who are without moral guidance or direction." So I hope and pray in the days ahead that people will remember that.

When I was at the White House on Wednesday, the day after the tragedies, I had occasion to speak with the President and the Cabinet and the other leaders of the Congress. We talked about this issue. We raised this issue. There was agreement throughout the room that we would keep this issue in mind and in the forefront of our discussions as we proceed in the weeks and months ahead.

So I want to commend the President, because he soon thereafter condemned this bigotry on national television, and so did the Attorney General, John Ashcroft, and so did Mayor Giuliani, with quite a bit of force in New York City.

Today, we in the Congress lend our voices to this chorus for American tolerance, Mr. Speaker, and diversity, and for the rights of every American of every heritage and faith to live and worship with safety and confidence and pride.

It is very heartening to see Members on both sides of the aisle stand up in support of what this resolution says.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), who has always been, for the 25 years he has been in the House, a leader on these issues.

Mr. Rahall. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Michigan for yielding; and I to want to commend him for bringing this to the floor this evening, as well as the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and to thank the gentleman from Michigan for his leadership on other relevant issues in this arena as well, and most particularly, his sponsorship and fight for the secret evidence legislation.

Mr. Speaker, we are all justifiably angered about the events of 9/11 last week. We, often, in our rage, in our fit of anger, say and do things that, upon reflection, we perhaps regret. But the instances that have been referred to by previous speakers, including the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), go beyond those just temporary slips of judgment or temporary slips of the tongue. They go to what is basic about our American society, and it is really an attack upon what is basic about our military society.

Let us not forget that Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, South Asian Americans, are Americans first. They chose to come to this country in order to seek a better way of life for themselves and their families. They pay taxes. They vote. They donate to various charitable causes within their communities. They have become well respected, and they have contributed in so many walks of life, whether it be the medical profession, the legal profession. Whether it be doctors, lawyers, whether it be teachers, whether it be laborers in our factories, they have contributed so much to our American way of life.

Let us not forget as well that there were members of these communities that were in those Twin Towers that lost their lives, as well. Let us not forget that fact.

So I guess the best way to describe these attacks against Arab Americans or Muslim Americans or South Asians is, as my hometown newspaper described it today, to paraphrase my hometown paper in Beckley, West Virginia, these are yahoos that are making these attacks, yahoos who happen to pose as great a threat to our American society, to our freedoms, and to our way of life as those perpetrators of those heinous crimes against our country last Tuesday.

They are ignorant, those who espouse these attacks. They are not the majority of Americans. No, they are a small group; and fortunately, these attacks are not as prominent today as they were in past occasions, like the Gulf War or the Oklahoma City bombing. That is because more and more recognition is coming to the communities represented by Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, South Asians, because of their contributions to our American way of life.

As the gentleman from Michigan has mentioned, they have all, to the group, condemned, highly condemned, the acts of last Tuesday. They have organized themselves into blood donation drives, they are contributing their money, they are praying as hard as each of us for the victims of these crimes against our country, and for the hopes of their families and their futures.

So I commend the gentleman from Michigan and the gentleman from Pennsylvania for bringing this resolution to the floor and urge its unanimous passage.

Mr. Bonior. I thank my colleague.

Continuing to reserve, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), who has not only spoken out against this kind of bigotry, but has actually organized in her own district.

Ms. Schakowsky. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me, and the efforts and leadership of my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan, to end this kind of bigotry and discrimination.

In the face of this unspeakable assault on the American people, we have so many reasons to be proud this week. We look at the firefighters, the police, the other emergency workers who went into harm's way, and so we are celebrating as an American family an opportunity to embrace each other, even as we grieve, and congratulate those who have worked so hard to end the suffering.

At the same time there has been this one sour note, and that is, that there are those who have used this occasion to commit acts of bigotry and even violence against people who want to join with us as Americans, as residents of this country, as people offended by this act of terrorism and find themselves being the victim. It is hard for me to even imagine people who are feeling so hurt by what happened and then themselves go out in the street and find themselves to be harassed as somehow to blame for these acts of violence when they are completely innocent.

I have a district that is so diverse, all kinds of people, every race and religion and ethnic origin; and we are going to take a walk down Divine Avenue this Sunday, a street in my district that has shops, a booming commercial district of Muslims and Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Orthodox Jews, Jewish people. And we are going to walk from one end of the street to the other, just take a walk together, hand in hand, arm in arm to express our solidarity.

That is the kind of thing that we need to be doing in this hour of need in this country to help heal each other and not turn against each other, and that is the essence of this resolution that I hope everyone will support.

Mr. Bonior. Mr. Speaker, further reserving the right to object, I think it is a beautiful idea, and I hope it is emulated around the country. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Ms. Jackson-lee of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for his leadership on this issue. He has been a continuing advocate for these issues, and as well, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims for bringing this particular resolution to the floor of the House. And I would certainly want to offer to the American people the fact that we are better than this.

Clearly, it is important during this time of great emotion, constantly seeing our brethren searching for those who may still live or those who do not live. It is stressful as we watch the continuous rescue efforts in New York, some still continuing at the Pentagon, the review of the heroic act of those who downed the plane in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, you want to lash out. You want to find some easing of your pain. But listening to a woman who was full of pain say we do not want them here is not the way that America shows its pain. America understands what freedom, what democracy, and what our values are all about.

So I think this is particularly important today for the Congress of the United States to use its national platform to be louder than those disjointed chords of confusion and hatred and really speak loudly to our local jurisdictions, our governors, our mayors, our county commissioners, our local law enforcement, our parishes, churches, synagogues and mosques, our community organizations, all of them, our neighbors, our schools. We must speak in one voice that we will not tolerate this kind of singling out of Americans, Arab Americans, South Asian Americans, and American Muslims.

In particular, I think one of the greater tragedies is what is happening to our children, children who have to go to and from school, children who have to mingle on school playgrounds, and it is in school classrooms and on school sports teams. What are we doing to them? Are we setting up a situation where those who believe this is the right thing to do because they heard adults say this? Are they then intimidating others who happen to be Arab American, South Asian Americans and American Muslims? We are dividing our children.

The one thing about a terrorist act is it is to instill an enormous amount of fear in society, and what happens out of fear? You begin to turn on each other. Let us show the perpetrators of these terroristic acts that we do stand against terrorism, and we are fearless. In fact, we are so fearless that we are going to unify with each other and we are going to find unity in being an American, an Arab American, South Asian American and American Muslim.