Claiming that the incidence of hate crimes goes underreported, Penn activist and minority group leaders gathered last night on College Green to make sure that such acts receive proper coverage in the national and local media.
The nascent group -- known as Concerned Students Against Discrimination -- organized a campaign to alert media outlets of any racially-motivated hate crimes coming in the wake of last Tuesday's terrorist attacks.
Made up of approximately 120 students, the organization plans to use telephone and letter-writing campaigns to put pressure on politicians and media outlets.
Engineering sophomore Rani Nazim said the group was trying to get Penn Political Science Professors Hocine Fetni and Nubar Hovsepian, as well as Temple University's head of religious studies, Khalid Blankinship, on the airwaves.
The three, she said, had agreed to speak on behalf of Philadelphia's Muslim minority.
Many students said that the news media seems more concerned with international relations than any injustices in their home country.
"Right now, I think the media's more concerned with the country going to war," Engineering junior Akash Amin said. "They're not seeing what's going on in America and in our everyday lives."
Engineering junior Sandeep Acharya, who, along with College junior Vivek Arora, organized last night's event, echoed Anin's sentiments.
"[We want to see] that the media is a little more aware that we as a community are affected by this and that the Penn community is showing support for the people who have been attacked," Acharya said.
Several also expressed concern that they were being seen in an unfair light as a result of Tuesday's incidents.
"A lot of this is spawned because there is the fear that when someone looks at us they see a terrorist or terrorism, which isn't true," said College junior Anita Sreedhar, who is also heading up the groups efforts concerning print media. "We all feel just as angry and just as sad about the events this Tuesday as the rest of Americans do."
Some of those present at the meeting were actually victims of prejudice themselves or could cite examples of friends who had been targeted because of their race or ethnicity.
Engineering junior Aalok Mehta, for one, said he was harassed while walking on South Street last Thursday.
"Four people were walking behind me and my three friends," he said. "First they were like, `my dad was in the World Trade Center.' Then they asked us where our towels were and why they weren't on our heads.
"The only reason they didn't go any further was because there was a cop car on the street."
According to Acharya, who helped organize yesterday's meeting, he and Arora had organized the event in response to violence close to his home in Ocean, N.J.
"What prompted me to organize this was hearing that a Hindu temple 15 minutes from where I lived was firebombed and there was no media attention," he said.
A group of about 60 students met in the lobby of Harrison College House on Tuesday night to begin organizing the awareness campaign.
The effort has already received the support from the Penn chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Penn Arab Society, the Muslim Students Association, the United Minorities Council, the Program for Awareness and Cultural Education, the Penn Indian American Advocacy and the Asian Pacific Student Coalition, among others.
Overall, there was a desire for safety among the over 120 attendees.
"Tell them `I wish our community was more aware of this so I could feel safe walking around,'" said Karthik Anbalagan, president of the South Asian Society. "`Just tell them how you feel.'"
