The Index-Journal from Greenwood, South Carolina • Page 4

Islam teaches is widespread. More than half of respondents in a recent poll by the Pew Forum for Religion Public Life said they knew little or nothing about the Muslim faith. Some U.S. Muslims say their national organizations share the blame, for answering intricate questions about Islam with platitudes, and failing to fully examine the potential for extremism within their communities. Muslim leaders often respond when terrorists strike by saying Islam is a of that has no role in the violence instead of confronting the legitimate concerns of other Americans, these Muslim critics say.

a quaintness and naivete or outright whitewashing of some very complex said Saeed Khan, who teaches at Wayne State University in Detroit. has caused a lot of frustration for a lot of Muslim Americans, myself The summer frenzy about Islam in America has revolved around Park51, a community center and mosque planned two blocks from New ground zero. Opponents and supporters of the center converged on the area for protests and counter-protests Saturday after the morning memorial ceremony at the World Trade Center site. In recent months, mosques in Tennessee, California, New York and elsewhere have been shot at and vandalized. Threatening messages were left at one mosque.

A Florida pastor caused a global uproar with his ultimately unfulfilled threat to make a bonfire of Qurans on Sept. 11. Many Jewish, Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, evangelical, atheist and other groups have responded with an outpouring of support for Muslims, but suspicion remains high among many Americans. Islamic centers have become a focus of non-Muslim fears. Federal authorities have placed informants in mosques, saying doing so is a critical counter-terrorism tool.

Muslim groups have separately created national campaigns encouraging congregations to monitor for any sign of radicalization, but they have also complained bitterly about the use of informants, worried the innocent will be caught up in the net police have set for criminals. Akbar Ahmed, professor of Islamic studies at American University, found a wide range of mosques from literalist to modernist to mystical while researching his book, Into America, The Challenge of He said many mosques are engaged in internal struggles between Muslims with rigid and modernist views, but he found none that fit the imaginings of anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists. Historians, and several Muslim leaders, see similarities to the prejudice Roman Catholics and Jews experienced as newcomers to America starting in the 19th century. The hierarchical Catholic church was denounced as a threat to the separation of church and state. Synagogues were banned in many states, and Jews were viewed as undermining the Christian character.

Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Connecticut, said the experience of Japanese Americans in World War II more closely parallels the current plight of Muslims. After the Pearl Harbor bombing, Silk said Americans asked, our Japanese different from those think about to round up all the Muslims and put them in concentration Silk said. I think ever seen the degree of legitimacy given by people in positions of authority to straight-up, anti-Islamic The Muslim Public Affairs Council, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group, blames bigotry on small cottage that foments prejudice on the Web and elsewhere. These organizations have dramatically expanded their reach since 2001 through social media, and have made celebrities of Muslim converts to Christianity who disparage Islam as thoroughly violent. reality is that there are very well-funded initiatives to spread misinformation about said Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella group for thousands of Muslims.

the Muslim community, we are finding ourselves so stretched. a young Barbara Baker HODGES Barbara Anne Waites Baker, 63, of 1208 East Grumling Road, wife of Millard Baker died Saturday, September 11, 2010 at Hospice House. Born in Greenwood, she was the daughter of Eula Mae Turner Waites and the late Silas William Waites. Barbara retired from Park Seed and was a member of Providence Baptist Church. Surviving in addition to her husband of the home and her mother of Hodges are a son, Vincent Lee Baker and wife, Dana, of Hodges; two daughters, Cheryl Baker Phillips and husband, Sam and Sharon Baker Powell and husband, Chip all of Hodges; and five grandsons, Zachary Powell, Wesley Powell, Benji Baker, Calab Baker and Devry Bowie.

Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. on Tuesday at Providence Baptist Church with the Rev. Lamar Babb officiating. Burial will be in Greenwood Memorial Gardens. Pallbearers will be Kenneth Baker, Keith Smith, Terry DeVore, Robbie Stone, Mark Bussey and Rodney McCarty.

Honorary escort will be the men of the church. The family will receive friends at Harley Funeral Home on Monday from 6 to 8 p.m. Memorials may be made to Providence Baptist Church, PO Box 6, Hodges, SC 29653 or to Hospice House, 408 West Alexander Avenue, Greenwood, SC 29646. The family is at the home of her daughter, Sharon Baker Powell, 1114 East Grumling Road, Hodges. Messages may be sent to the family by visiting www.harley funeralhome.com.

Jean Boyd ABBEVILLE Jean Boyd, 79, formerly of 1403 Greenville passed away Sunday, September 12, 2010 at Earl Hadlow Center in Jacksonville, FL. Funeral plans are incomplete and will be announced by Chandler-Jackson Funeral Home. The Index-Journal, Greenwood, S.C. Monday, September 13, 2010 4A Obituaries GREENWOOD COUNTY Barbara Baker, 1208 E. Grumling Road, Hodges ABBEVILLE COUNTY Jean Boyd, formerly of 1403 Greenville Abbeville VISITATIONS TODAY BAKER, Barbara, 6-8, Harley Funeral Home.

FUNERALS TODAY CHASTEEN, Helen, 11, Blyth Funeral Home. OBITUARY POLICIES Short death notices are published at no charge. They consist of name, age, address of deceased, or of, date of death, place of death, home where family members are gathered and funeral home in charge of arrangements. Visitations and services for the current day are included on the Deaths and Funerals list. Obituaries including other information are charged $14 per column inch.

Pictures will increase the notice length and be charged accordingly. All obituaries are handled through the newsroom obituary desk: (864) 223-1811; e-mail, The Index-Journal is not responsible for money paid in advance to carriers. MEMBER OF ASSOCI AT ED PRESS Make All Remittances To THE INDEX-JOURNA COMP AN Box 1018, Greenwood, S.C. 29648 (POSTMASTER: Send address changes to above address. he publisher assumes no liability for merchandise incorrectly priced through typographical error and in no event will liability be assumed where goods are sold at the incorrect price.

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Mays also served as an adviser to presidents Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson and was the first black president of the Atlanta Board of Education. However, he is perhaps best known for being one of Martin Luther King most trusted mentors. Mays came to know King when King was a student at Morehouse. Local resident Loy Sartin is a noted Mays historian and is the curator of the Benjamin E. Mays Historic Preservation Site.

As he organized some of the many Mays books, photographs, articles and artifacts last week at the museum, Sartin talked a bit about character and integrity. Mays was in the forefront in this nation fighting the evils of segre gation and Sartin said. Martin Luther King was born in 1929, Mays was already writing and speaking across the country about the evils of segregation. People realize what a great person he was. A man of extreme Visitors to the Mays Historic Site also will have the opportunity to watch in the a new documentary on life.

Sartin said any large groups wanting to tour the site to call GLEAMNS at 223-8434 ext. 1001 to set up an appointment time. Despite what some people might think, the United States has the largest manufacturing economy, according to information from the Department of Commerce. U.S. manufacturing employs nearly 12 million people.

However, Hastings notes industries that have to compete against China and other Asian countries are largely as a result of the trade deficit the U.S. has with textile industry could be helped if government would move aggressively against Chinese currency manipulation and support customs enforcement of our current trade Hastings said. is obvious why the U.S. needs manufacturing if we look at the unemployment problem in this country and our trade deficit. the last 10 years, the U.S.

has lost about 7 million manufacturing Figures from the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance show S.C. has lost more than 151,000 jobs since 1998, Hastings said. South Carolina, the manufacturing sector pays wages well above the average industry and in most cases provides additional fringe benefits such as health care and vacation Hastings said. South Carolina, manufacturing also plays a key role in the property tax Hastings points out the manufacturing sector pays nearly 13 percent of all property taxes in the state, but it makes up only 5 percent of establishments in S.C. Additionally, the manufacturing sector paid 40 percent of all property taxes in Greenwood County during fiscal year 2008, Hastings said.

Government, Hastings said, should work to get U.S. manufacturing on a more playing with manufacturing elsewhere in the world. it free trade when China provides more than 60 subsidies to its textile industry or currency is manipulated to give exporters as much as a 30 percent price break over goods made in other Hastings asked. Hastings has a masters in business administration from University of South Carolina and a degree in business from Lander College (now Lander University). graduating from USC, I went to work in Columbia for Arthur Andersen and an international accounting firm and I became a certified public Hastings said.

my five-plus years with Andersen, my client base ws mainly manufacturing In September 1986, Hastings went to work for the corporate office of Mount Vernon Mills, a textile manufacturing company, in the area, but chose to continue living in Greenwood. (Mount Vernon Mills has a manufacturing plant in McCormick and a trucking and chemical operation in Ware Shoals.) Hastings became chief financial officer in 1999 and president and chief operating officer in 2008, before being named president and CEO in 2009. Additionally, Hastings is current chairman of a Washington-based lobbying group, the National Council of Textile Organizations. Hastings is married and has three children. His family attends Westminster Presbyterian Church.

Hastings enjoys working out at the Greenwood Family YMCA and playing tennis. MAYS Continued from 1A MUSLIMS Continued from 1A HASTINGS Continued from 1A The G. Frank Russell Career Center will have an open house from 5:30 to 7 p.m. today. Students from Emerald, Greenwood, Ninety Six and Ware Shoals high schools and their parents are invited to meet instructors, tour the campus and pay fees.

OPEN HOUSE Career center invites students and parents By The Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan Afghan soldiers fired on demonstrators trying to storm a government building to protest against a once- planned Quran burning in the U.S., and two protesters were killed, an Afghan official said. Four were injured. The protesters in eastern Logar province Sunday chanted to and burned tires, attacked several shops and set election campaign posters on fire, said Mohammad Rahim Amin, chief of Baraki Barak district. can say for sure that this was the work of the enemies of peace and stability in Afghanistan who are trying to use any opportunity to disrupt the security in the country, Amin said. At previous protests, witnesses said Taliban agitators were among the crowd and Taliban-distributed pamphlets claimed the planned Quran burning showed the Americans were in Afghanistan to wage war against Islam.

AP PHoTo An Afghan man lies in the hospital after being injured Friday at a protest in reaction to a small American plan to burn copies of the Quran, at Badakhshan, northern Afgani stan. Police in the northern province of Badakhshan say several hundred demonstrators ran toward a NATo compound where four attackers and five police were injured in clashes. Protesters also burned an American flag at a mosque after Friday prayers. AFGHANISTAN 2 killed in anti-Quran burning protest.