Monday, April 20, 2009
WL: Media Representations and the Criminalization of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans
In the United States, Arabs are looked at through a demeaning light. This article opened my eyes to American's close-minded views of both Arab and Muslim Americans. It talked about the sterotypes that American's place on both men and women Arabs and Muslims. I totally agree with the articles standpoint that the "demonization of Arabs and Muslims reached a new level after 9/11/01" (465). Before these attacks, as well as America's entry into the Middle East, not much was known about these people's lives. Yes, I knew vaguely that there was constant fighting over a land dispute, but I always disregarded their issues because it had nothing to do with me. However, after America got involved with the Middle East and it's people, more focus was put towards the extreme violence, torturing acts and suicide bombings. Thus all of America's focus was put towards the negative situations taking place, especailly if it involved an American reporter, solieder etc. First of all, this is unfair to these people because we are exploiting their lives and showing the rest of the world these negative images. Yes, awful stuff has and will happen due to terrorist groups, but not all Middle Eastern people hold these violent ideals. Every country has exprienced or is experiencing murder, hate crimes, rape and many more violent acts. So how is it fair that the U.S. is focusing on only the bad within the Middle East instead of the good? How would America feel if another country was exploiting our issues to the entire world? Keeping this in mind, Middle Eastern people fill a huge gap in America's ethnocentric views. Americans tend to view Arab and Islamic males as possessing terrorist ideals. This view of men leaves us to think that the Arab and Islamic women are battered and are living depressive lives. This easily leaves us to feel compassion towards them because they have the live with these terrorist men. Overall, we identify Islam as evil and violent. However, Islam possesses many of the same characteristics that Christianity does. The Bible and Quran express similar ideals of peace, love for your neighbor, forgiveness etc. I know that not everyone is Christian in the U.S., however, a great majority is. There are many other issues between the Middle Eastern people leading to the disputes that have lasted for many years. It is unfair for American's to make all of these judgements without the full knowledge of the people. It is frustrating to see American's play the "blame game" because they think that blaming a spreicifc thing, for example that Muslims religion is causing the violence, will lead them to an answer.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Throughout history people have been victimized with violence and discrimination based on their religion. You would think people have learned from these mistakes but people disregard history and repeat the mistakes of man over and over again. There was the Crusades (Christians against other religions), WWII (Jewish genocide), and now the war against Muslims. The whole community of a religion should not pay for the actions of a group from their religion. Today Christians assault and even kill gays/lesbians because they believe being homosexual is a sin. You do not see the whole Christian community paying for their actions, you do not see Christians labeled as terrorists like how Muslims are labeled. Just because a group is not against a nation or a country it does not mean they are not terrorists. There are terrorists against women, gays/lesbians, etc. It is not limited to groups against nations/countries; it is also groups against other groups.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of an article that I read about the U.S. and the war against terrorism. Bush declared war against terrorists but sends troops to Iraq. This is what I don't understand. Terrorists are everywhere in the world. Why does Iraq have to be targeted? Yes, that is where the hijackers of September 11 came from, but do all Iraqis need to suffer for the actions of one group of people? Innocent people are forced to struggle through the horrors of war.
Thanks.
I'd also like to point out that not only do we stereotype all people from the Middle East, but we also demean the Islamic religion as well. We see these terrorist acts committed and we cite Muslim extremists as the culprits. The key word here is EXTREMISTS, and not the word MUSLIM. The Islamic religion is a very peaceful and open-minded one, I know this because I've been studying it all semester in my Middle Eastern History class. There are extremists in every religion, and none of them should be stereotyped as embodying the whole religion itself. Take Christianity for example; you never hear about CHristian extremist groups committing acts of terror, because we don't consider them Christian at that point. The same should be said for other religions as well. These Islamic fundamentalists don't embody the Islamic traditions and beliefs; they claim that they do, but their actions speak other wise. It's important to keep these types of things in perspective when hearing stories about the conditions of the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. In doing this, we can further combat the unfair stereotypes placed on these people.
ReplyDelete