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March 8, 2011

The Honorable Peter King The Honorable Bennie Thompson

Chairman Ranking Member
Committee on Homeland Security Committee on Homeland Security
U.S. House of Representatives U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515 Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman King and Ranking Member Thompson:

On behalf of the NAACP, our nation’s oldest, largest and most widely-recognized
grassroots civil rights organization, I am writing to strongly urge you to reconsider
holding the narrowly focused and reckless hearings planned by the Committee on
Homeland Security, tentatively scheduled for March 10, 2011, on the “Extent of
Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response.”
Such a hearing, as presently planned with it’s limited and skewed focus on one
religious- ethnic group, would be not only counter-productive as it clearly does not
provide a focus on so many of the other “homegrown terrorist” groups working to
radicalize sectors of U.S. religious communities, but it is also divisive and potentially
harmful to our nation’s security interests.

The NAACP is no stranger to domestic terrorism: as the surviving friends and family of
Harry T. and Henrietta Moore, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr., Schwerner,
Goodman, and Chaney, and Emmitt Till, not to mention the 168 killed and 450 injured in
the Alfred T. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, and too many others can attest, we are
all too familiar with the evil concept. We are also too familiar with the process of being
ostracized and demonized because of who we are or what we look like. Finally,
members of the NAACP also have a long history of working with and benefitting from
the goodwill of people of all races and ethnicities regardless of their background. It is
clear that the most effective means of identifying terrorists is through their behavior —
not ethnicity, race or religion.

Factual history has clearly demonstrated that “homegrown domestic terrorism” cannot
be relegated to one racial or ethnic group. To do so is to overlook actual historic and
current events, which are both riddled with terrorist acts by extremists from a large
variety of racial, ethnic, political, social and religious groups. Furthermore, by identifying
one group as being largely responsible for current terror threats against our nation, you
are promoting misinformation and stereotypes that can only build mistrust among
members of that group. This in turn will make it more difficult for members of that group
to cooperate with authorities in identifying or reporting genuine threats, and more
unlikely that they will. On the other side of the equation, this approach creates
misguided hostility towards or Muslims or perceived Muslims by perpetuating
stereotypes which incite further misunderstandings or even violence against those
groups.

So I must again urge you in the strongest terms possible to rethink the focus of your
proposed hearings on domestic terrorism. The United States today clearly faces a wide
variety of dangers, from both foreign and domestic sources, and to focus on one group
presents not only a disservice to that group, but also to our Nation. I look forward to
working with you in the upcoming Congress to help identify and eradicate threats
against our Nation. Please feel free to contact me whenever you feel that the NAACP
can be of assistance.

Sincerely,

Hilary O. Shelton
Director, NAACP Washington Bureau &
Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Policy