Stereotypes as a Propaganda Tool
Stereotypes as a Propaganda Tool
As Americans go through a post-traumatic process after the September tragedies, most people are trying to analyze the entire situation to find out who is wrong and who is right. While media, politicians, and military leaders endlessly speak about the Taliban, Bin-Laden, Arabs, and Islam, we are making our conclusions based on what we hear. What an average American might assume by watching television and reading newspapers is that Islamic fundamentalism is some kind of mental illness and every Arabic-looking man is a threat to society. Unintentionally, we are about to make the same mistake by discriminating against people as we did with the Germans during World War II and Japanese after Pearl Harbor. Because we know the consequences, we have to decide again, is it acceptable to stereotype some people and set them apart on the basis of their religion and national origin just because they “fit the profile”?
No doubt, the terrorist attacks in the United States have changed many things in the “self-contained” American mentality. Feelings such as fear, anger, hate, and sadness washed through our minds like a gigantic storm in the middle of the ocean. The new mind-set about “suspicious” people from certain ethnic group became an everyday norm soon after the September events. It became the standard procedure to single out Muslim-looking people and subject them to additional searches, it is the norm now to ask them three or four times a day for identification papers anytime and anywhere. It became common to refuse to fly in the same plane with Arabs. This is a true episode by Gail Schoettler published in Denver Post:
As I settled into my seat for a recent flight, th...
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Paulson, Michael. “The Usual Suspects when Hollywood Needs Villains, Arabs are Often First Choice. ‘Reel Bad Arabs’ Lays Out the Evidence, and It’s Not Pretty.” Boston Globe 25 Nov. 2001: L.9.
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Poblete, Pati. “Lifting the Veil of Stereotypes.” Sun Francisco Chronicle 14 Oct. 2001: B.1.
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Schoettler, Gail. “It’s Time to Live Our Ideas.” Denver Post 28 Oct. 2001: F.05.
Sultan, Aisha. ”Faces of Islam; St.Louis Muslims Lead Diverse Lives That Defy Stereotypes.” St.Louis Post 30 Sep. 2001: B.1.
In the article “Modern-Day Witch Hunts”, Jamie Dailey focuses the attention on problems that Muslim Americans commonly face on a day-to-day basis. He first paints a picture by comparing the violent acts performed on Muslims to the Salem Witch trial in 1692. The Salem Witch trials resulted in 19 deaths of innocent individuals, because they were accused of witchcraft. Dailey goes on to explain in America, the type of persecution Muslims endure has many forms. A more recent controversy towards this religion involves the building of the Ground Zero Mosque in central New York. The name of this building is very misleading, especially to the eyes of an American. Even though this structure is actually built a few blocks away from where the former World Trade Center stood, problems have still risen from the public. Americans often mistake Muslims as the group of people who had performed acts of terrorism on American soil, when it was actually an Islamic group known as Al Qaeda. Mosques all across the United States started being vandalized by people protesting against their religion. This article shows how irrational fear can corrupt the thoughts of people.
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.
The attitudes toward Muslims today have not changed significantly since September 11, 2001. Any Muslim person; man, woman, or child is automatically suspect to instigate pandemonium, based strictly on their appearance and faith. Regardless of any evidence, reasoning, or perspective to the contrary, Muslims are seen as an enemy to United States citizens. The events of 9/11 left Muslim Americans unceremoniously lacking any respect from U.S. citizens regardless of any affiliation with Al-Qaida. We assess Muslim people with a common image of terror. We see the turban or hijab and assume a terrorist is hidden within its folds. Our mentalities inevitably come to a paralyzing halt, and we can never see through the fabric of the religious garments. When we see any one of these people, one person comes to mind, and that is the person who attacked our country. Today, in our nations cities and towns these arrogances still exist forcefully. Muslim people are still profoundly victimized and discriminated against by the means of assumption and negative mental sets. In the novel Zeitoun, author Dave Eggers takes time to assess the spitefulness encountered by Kathy and Abdulrahman Zeitoun, along with narrating the family’s endeavors with hurricane Katrina. Zeitoun presents racial differences in America, primarily in New Orleans, by discussing how they are created and the ways in which they exist today.
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.
Sabbagh, S. J., & American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, W. C. (1990). Sex, Lies, & Stereotypes: The Image of Arabs in American Popular Fiction. ADC Issue Paper No. 23. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
... another post 9/11. Furthermore, through both Amaney Jamal excerpt Civil Liberties and the Otherization of Arab and Muslim Americans (chapter four), and Nadine Naber excerpt Arab Americans and U.S. Racial Formations (Introduction), we see just how this clash came about pre and post 9/11. That while the aftermath of 9/11 saw the rise in the racialization of Muslim and Arab Americans, we must not forget that these groups of people were not so much invisible due to the fact that America (i.e. “dominant mainstream” (Jamal 119)) has always viewed those they deem as “other” (i.e. minority) as inferior. Due to this framework, they have racialized any group of people that are not considered American as “other.” However (as stated) following an event like 9/11, the racialization of Muslims and Arabs Americans became perpetuated more so; and at an even more dangerous level.
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.
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...
Targets of suspicion: the impact of post-9/11 policies on Muslims, Arabs and South Asians in the US. (2004, May 1). Retrieved from http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/special-reports/targets-suspicion-impact-post-911-policies-muslims-arabs-and-south-asians-us
Shaheen, Jack. “The Media’s Image of Arabs.” Writing on the River. 3rd ed. Boston: McGraw,
One of the foremost not-so-shocking consequences that have unusually become a trend in today’s society as a result of the events of September 11th is the issue of racial profiling. Racial profiling is the unjust method used by certain police officials to gather suspects for a variety of crimes; it is used to target certain individuals based on race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion (“Racial Profiling”). Citizens and authorities alike have developed an attitude towards people from the Middle East. When a person sees a Middle Eastern male enter a plane before it takes flight, people usually began to feel extreme paranoia. Since we are assuming that the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 and 2001 were both done by the same nationality, citizens have established the mindset that all Middle Eastern individuals are inevitably terrorists. It is true that both masterminds for each of the attacks were of Middle Eastern descent. However, the paranoia is not rational; it is only rooted in an irrational fear birthed out of ignorance. The only conclusion th...
F. Hasan, Asma Gull (2000). American Muslims; The New Generation. New York. The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.
After the tragic events of 9/11 attacks in the United States, there has been over a hundred terrorism-themed films such as Black Hawk Down and American Sniper that portrays a generalization of Muslims with violence, uncivilized, and is described as crude villains (Aguayo, 2009). This has unfortunately affected the way the American public view the Muslims negatively, which in turn leads to discrimination, prejudice, and irrational fear of Muslims (Islamophobia). The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) stated that the American Sniper film has caused a significant rise in violent hate and racist threat targeting the Arab and Muslim-American communities due to the promulgation of anti-Muslim propaganda and bigotry (Khalek, 2015).