Sherman Alexie’s Flight Patterns, which discusses racial stereotypes, relates to the effects of 9/11 on American citizens, who tend to inappropriately judge Muslim and other cultures in the world today. Although 9/11 was a horrible day, it still should not be used to categorize and stereotype people. Stereotypes do nothing but harm to the people who receive it and to the people who dish it out. The first thing that every person says when you mention stereotypes being mean or hurtful to people is that stereotypes don’t really affect anyone or the way that people act towards them and treat them. However, after 9/11, Muslims in America quite often felt that the people around them were constantly judging them. This however is true for in the story …show more content…
Though recent studies have shown that this is not just in the U.S. but worldwide (el-Aswad). In Flight Patterns William is always describing and joking about the many different stereotypes and unfortunate events that can and might happen to him since 9/11. He talks about the way his skin, eyes, and hair look, also how, “[he] should have worn beaded vests when he traveled…and maybe have brought a hand drum and sang” so people will know that he is Indian and not judge him (60). But when the taxi driver questions him on his nationality he is slightly offended but he moves on because he had racially profiled him because of the scar on his neck earlier. Things like this occur because though it might not be the original intentions, “Ideas and images circulate in media frequently enough to then have effects, such as producing fear, in viewers” about the different minorities in our country, especially Muslims in this post 9/11 world …show more content…
Several people in these cultures that are constantly watched or people are scared of try their hardest to fit in and look more Americanized. This includes them dying their hair, trying to appear lighter or darker than they are depending on their nationality. Some will even try to change their facial features or eye color so you won’t know what their true nationality is. On the other hand some try and make their actual nationality be more noticeable to separate them from the stereotypes. Similarly, William seems to want to change the judgment people make when they look at him and hear what his nationality is, which can be seen when he talks about being a Spokane Indian and wearing the beaded vest and carrying around drums. However, the media and press in the U.S. are making it rather impossible for them to be accepted equally; “The biased and distorted media coverage that misrepresents…Muslims has recently been discussed by [American] scholars. The extreme stereotype[s] assert that all Muslims are terrorists, although it is said that terrorists are the minority of Muslims
...ld want to avoid, stay away from, and keep maximum distance between. Since September 11th, people say those same things in our modern society. Those wearing turbans are often looked down upon and cause people to feel nervous around them. Another way people are stereotyped compared to those in the past are by an individual’s religion. Before September 11th, Muslims were seen as peaceful people; however since that eventful day, they are not looked at the same. People see them as different and many see them as a threat to security, harmful to our society, and not those of the type of people that can be trustworthy. They are currently being stereotyped just as those who had “illnesses” and were accused of witchcraft in the past.
Every time a terrorist attack happens the media jumps all over it, and puts their own twist on what had happened. “Thus, the media has a strong potential to influence how the public thinks about social problems like terrorism, especially because most people only experience terrorism through mass-media accounts...This research also finds that media portrayals of terrorism increase anxiety among the viewing public.” (Chermak, 2006) The media is one of the leading causes of stereotypes, and what influences our beliefs today. When you think of a terrorist, you may think of either a middle aged muslim male or a middle aged white male with some sort of mental or social disorder. This isn 't always the case. A terrorist can be of any race, age, and social class. Due to the media 's influence, we all believe in the same stereotypes and imagine the same description of what a terrorist may look like. This is one of the main reasons behind racial profiling.
An inevitable reality that Americans face all too often, or even just human culture in general, is stereotyping. As human beings we observe one another and frequently come to a conclusion about an individual solely based on these observations. We don’t take the time to get to know each other or hear their intellectual views before we have already made a judgement based on appearance, grammatical skills, race, or even the religion they identify with. Throughout the movie “Crash” I identified many instances of whole groups of people being generalized, therefore stereotyped. One scene in the movie showed
On September 11, 2001, since the terrorist attacks, many American Muslims have been stereotyped negatively in the United States. Salma, a Muslim woman, says that the way Muslims have been recognized in the media has played a big role in the antagonisms directed to her. “I don’t know how many time I heard my classmates accuse me of being al-Qaeda or a terrorist” (Mayton 2013). Salma, along with other Muslims, even after a decade, are still struggling with trying to find their “American” and “Islamic” identities, while facing verbal attacks for their ethnicity. Too often, the general Muslin population gets lumped in with the immoral acts of a few because of the lack of knowledge about their culture.
The way Muslims have been treated after the 9/11 incident is very different than before. Before 9/11 there was certainly some discrimination towards Muslim Americans, but after the attacks happened, between the years 2000 and 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported a 1,700 percent increase of hate crimes against Muslim Americans (Khan & Ecklund, 2012). “While trying to adapt to the outcome of 9/11, Muslim Americans dealt with an increase in negative stereotypes spoken by the common culture, and Muslim immigrants faced more negative attitudes than any other immigrant group” (Khan & Ecklund, 2012). Since the 9/11 attacks, people who dress with a substantial resemblance to Muslims worry about the upcoming hatred and unfriendliness from people of other ethnicities (Khan & Ecklund, 2012). While listening to the media, one can hear reports of negative stereotypes towards people who resemble the Muslim religion, which may be assumed that these people are violent. Negative attitudes that Muslim Americans experience may have detrimental effects on their success in America and their success of achieving the American Dream.
Has the New York Times negatively stereotyped Arab Muslims for the past forty years? The goal of this research project is to reveal the negative stereotypes directed towards Arab Muslims in the New York Times. The critical focus of the research is the consistency of the negative stereotypes. The underlying focus is what theoretical and historical effects result from the negative stereotypes.
Movies, one can argue, are one of America’s greatest pastimes. Unfortunately, after 9/11, films have become increasingly prejudiced against American Muslims. In movies Muslims are frequently portrayed negatively. According to James Emery, a professor of Anthropology, Hollywood profits off of “casting individuals associated with specific negative stereotypes”. This is due to the fact that viewers automatically link characters with their clichéd images (Emery). For Muslims, the clichéd image is of the violent fundamentalist, who carried out the terroristic attacks on 9/11. As a result, the main stereotypes involved in movies display Muslims as extremists, villains, thieves, and desert nomads. An example of a movie that has such a negative character role for Muslims in film is Disney’s cartoon Aladdin, depict...
The first type of stereotyping we’ll look at is racial stereotyping towards Middle Eastern people. First, Americans from Middle Eastern descent are often depicted as belly dancers and oil sheiks. For example Aladdin is shown in the movie with his belly button exposed. This is a false image of Middle Eastern people today and even in the past. Another stereotype is that Arabs all live and the desert and ride camels. This angers many Arabs because that is not the lifestyle they live at all. Lastly many Arabs in movies and shows are shown as villains and terrorists. Not every Arab person is bad so why show them as bad people. These stereotypes are unfair to the Arab culture.
Islam in America has historically been misunderstood, and this is due to the misconception of culture and religion as well as lack of education and incorrect portrayal in the media, which gives a skewed idea of Islam. Especially in the United States, Islam has been seen as the “terrorist religion” or a religion for the extremists and a religion in which freedom is not an option. Among the countless misconceptions, the basis of stereotypes by Americans is due to the mix up between religion and culture. Furthermore, the media only fuels fire to these misunderstandings and lack of factual information about Islam causing Americans to lash out on American Muslims without reason.
Imagine that you are of Arab decent you being screened more thoroughly than others at the airport. The only way the airport staff can identify that you are of Arab decent is based on your family name, Najjar. The airport staff constantly takes extra measures to confirm that you are not a terrorist. Stereotypes have existed in American culture for centuries. Early in American history stereotypes of Negroes and Mexicans predominately associate them with lower-class attributes (Campbell, 1967).
Muslim children face high level of discrimination at their schools as they are welcomed with negative comments about their religion by the children of other religions. Though abnormal but normally Muslim students are labeled as Terrorists and they are often verbally coerced and mocked to migrate back to their native countries. The overall conclusion can be drawn as the study that United States suffered a lot during the attacks of 9/11 but the ones who are still facing the aftermath of that incident are the Muslims around the globe and especially those present in United States. Various reasons other than 9/11 attacks behind Muslim stigmatization around globe include stereotyping against Muslims in terms of non-flexibility, uncommon culture, simple life style and aggressive behavior.
It is a part of human nature to make judgments of others based on appearances and stereotype people into different categories. In the short story “Flight Patterns,” Sherman Alexie uses fiction elements such as characters and plot to develop the idea of how humanity always uses the same brush to paint all the people in a particular group the way they want them to be. On an obvious level, throughout the journey of the main character, William, the story develops an ironic theme of the racial stereotypes.
Pico Lyer, writer of The Terminal Check was an Indian who was born in England and raised mostly in the United States of America. Lyer has chosen to live in Japan for about twenty years, and still receives questioning while at the airport. Chronicle Editorial Boards, The Stigma of Being Muslim in America, talks about how Muslims in America are being murdered all the time because of the color of their skin. Both the editorial, The Stigma of Being Muslim in America and the story, The Terminal Check use personal experience and facts about the population of the world as a whole to show the stigma of being a Muslim, Arabian, or any ethnicity from the Middle East. All these shootings and personal events prove that not only Americans fear people from
After 9/11 has induced negative attitudes towards Muslim peoples who tend to be strongly associated with any act of terrorism. The media has played a colossal role in developing such negative association wherein it constantly portrays Muslim people in combination with violent terrorist acts. It does so in a way that they both go hand-and-hand. In other words, it has made it as though the Islamic religion is synonymous with terrorism. The media has perpetuated Muslim stereotypes over the years that followed the 9/11 incident. Because of this, society has developed, and still has developed, this prejudiced mindset about the Islamic religion and the Muslim communities around the world. People immediately assume that any violent act being depicted through the media is the direct result of Muslims. They automatically generate this idea that the act was performed by a Muslim terrorist even when they were not involved whatsoever. Regardless of whether it was true or not, Islamic religion and its Muslim adherents are at the top of societies’ agenda just waiting for the evidence to be generated so that they can then safely blame them for such world affairs. Again, this has led to the attack on the Islamic religion itself wherein people have come to postulate Islam as an act of oppression, violence and hatred towards non-Muslims. Anti-Muslim sentiments and campaigns have resulted from such misinformation the media has been generating and feeding its viewers.
“Stereotyping is a three-part process” (Floyd, 61). In the first stage, we identify a group to which we believe another person belongs. For example, if a man is wearing a turban, one might assume he is a Muslim. In the next stage, we recall a generalization others often make about the people in that group. For example, many people in the United States generalize all Muslims as terrorists or haters of America. The last stage in the process of stereotyping is applying the generalization to that person. “You are Muslim, therefore must be a terrorist.” Obviously, these assumptions are not accurate, but are examples in the process of stereotyping (Floyd, 61).