Ray Hanania On Politics, Media And Life

When it comes to helping Arabs, call me Arab, not MENA, 3-18-23, S5E3 March 18, 2023 S5 E3 Ray Hanania gives an impassioned argument on why the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) category will undermine the effort to provide equal rights to Arab Americans. State Rep. Cyril Nichols introduced a law in 2022 that would recognize Arabs as an MBE (Minority Business Enterprise category) when it comes to received preferential treatment in the award of 25-30 percent of the state's $100 billion in annual contract awards. MBE status has been given to African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians and Women, to ensure that they can compete for the contract set-aside, with the majority of contracts, more than 70 percent, going to mainstream businesses. Instead, a group of self-serving Arabs have introduced their own bill in response to the Nichols legislationt o grant MBE status to the MENA category, which is mostly non-Arabs from th Middle East and from North Africa including African Americans who already q