Thursday, October 22, 2009
Reaction to 10/22/09 Class
Being from the Middle-East, I felt I had a different perspective on the videos about the stereotypes of Arabs in the class. The video we watched had some very good points, but I can't say for sure that the Hollywood stereotypes have affected the European-Americans I've met. I felt as if most of my friends weren't stupid enough to think that I was a terrorist, and that my other classmates weren't particularly racist against Muslims, at least not openly. I feel as if the problem was more that they were just ignorant of Islam and of Arabic culture. For example, they would think that people from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan were all Arabs, which have very different cultures despite being Muslim. I feel as if more education about Islam to these students would ease the problem and prevent stereotypes from reaching them. At American University, the people here seem to be very informed and I haven't had any problems. The stereotypes in Hollywood are a concern, but as the video said, because of the War on Terror these stereotypes are being re-evaluated, and people are becoming less ignorant.
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I agree that people seem to be becoming less ignorant. However, I always think that and then someone surprises me. I was home over the break and at dinner with some friends and one of my friends brought his little brother. At the end of the meal, we were all writing on the back of the check how much money to put on each credit card (we had a decently large group). Well, we figured it all out and my friends little brother said "hopefully our waiter will be able to figure that out because he's black." I was shocked and told him explicitly that that comment wasn't ok. Anyway, the outcome of my story is not what is important. I think we (especially at AU) are surrounded by many tolerant people. DC is an international city and AU is an international campus (I know, this is under some debate, but it is for me considering I came from an Episcopalian school in Dallas). Most people here are going to be accepting. We are also of a younger generation which facilitates more acceptance as well.
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