mohammadalisalih.com Blog

“Officially established in 1965, National Mall and Memorial Parks protects some of the older park lands in the National Park System. The areas within National Mall and Memorial Parks provide visitors with ample opportunities to commemorate presidential legacies; honor the courage and sacrifice of war veterans; and celebrate the United States commitment to freedom and equality.
The Division of Park Programs, located in the National Capital Region Headquarters building, issues approximately 4,000 permits per year, including those for public gatherings (special events and demonstrations), and filming and photography. The permit system is intended to help assure, to the extent possible, that the multitude of activities that may be taking place on any given day will not conflict with each other or with general visitor activities.
Park areas administered by this office include National Mall and Memorial Parks, President’s Park, Rock Creek Park, National Capital Parks-East, George Washington Memorial Parkway, Manassas National Battlefield Park, Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, Prince William Forest Park, Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site, and the portion of Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park from Georgetown to the Monocacy River Aqueduct. Note that some of these listed parks may directly issue certain permits. Please refer to the attached document link titled “How and where to apply for specific types of permits” to determine what office you should contact for your particular permit needs.
Please note that all applications, unless determined to be a First Amendment activity, must be accompanied by a $50.00 payment for initial processing. The application processing cost represents the average costs incurred by the park in mailing, distribution and initial review of applications to make sure the information supplied is sufficient to inform a decision. Payment of application costs may be in the form of check, money order, or credit card.
This office is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 A.M. until 4:00 P.M., holidays excepted.
Thanks for visiting. You can reach us at (202) 619-7225 to obtain additional information.”

The second question on my banner, as I silently stand in front of the White House for the rest of my life is: “WARS ON MUSLIMS?”
At first, I thought of asking: “SUBTLE WARS ON MUSLIMS?” But, I thought: (a) the first one was more sensational and (b) some people would ask me: “How did you know if it is subtle?”
But, I believe it is all about SUBTILITY.
Obviously, there are no laws against Muslims as there are no laws against Blacks. But many polls confirmed the existence of subtle discrimination against Blacks.
And now this scientific experiment:
Kerry Kawakami, professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, Ontario, and lead author of a study: “There are still really a lot of negative associations with Blacks. People are willing to tolerate racism and not stand up against it.”
Working with 120 non-Black participants, the scenarios began when a Black bumped a White when leaving the room.
After the Black left, in the “nice” scenario, the White did not comment. In the “moderate” scenario, the White said, “Typical, I hate it when Black people do that.” In the “extreme” scenario, the White said: “Clumsy Nigger.”
The participants reported little distress in all three scenarios. Even using that most extreme comment didn’t lead the participants to be particularly upset.
Immediately afterwards, the participants were asked to choose either the Black or the White as a partner for an anagram test. More than half chose the White — regardless of the severity of the comment that person made earlier.
Kawakami: “Some people might think that they’re very egalitarian and they don’t have to deal with their prejudices, and that’s not related to them. In actual fact they may hold these hidden biases.”
Anthony Greenwald, professor of psychology at the University of Washington, did a study that showed that between 75 and 80 percent of the Americans have implicit, non-overt prejudices against Blacks. The Web site, Project Implicit, has tests that users can take to compare their self-perceptions to their underlying attitudes about people based on different social categories.
What is responsible for these attitudes? Experts say one culprit is images in television, news and film that portray Blacks in a negative light.
“I don’t think what’s in people’s heads is going to change until the environment that places these things in their head has changed,” Greenwald said.
Parents can also have a big influence, experts say. Related work by Dunn shows that if parents have positive attitudes towards blacks, and they have good relationships with their children, then the children will develop more positive attitudes towards blacks too.