Dehumanizing Arab Americans

Quickly, Americans employed “counterterrorism tactics to victimize scapegoats, that is, people not associated with political violence but nonetheless targeted merely because of their ethnicity and religion, namely Middle Easterners, Arabs, and Muslims” (4). I agree with Welch’s argument that Americans took their apprehension and displaced it as anger for anyone whose skin tone was similar to the terrorists of 9/11. Also, Welch noted that through the process of scapegoating, Americans were provided “emotional relief” because it acts as a “defense mechanism” (4) leaving them not as

It is time to end the hating and labeling of all Arab Americans for what was done by a few individuals. One person’s race, religion, and activities do not mirror a population. With all the hate crimes, it seems that regular Americans can be considered terrorists, as well.

During the years of post-9/11, Americans have started to become wary of non-Americans in their home land of the fear of another terrorist attacks. The 9/11 attacks have changed American views on the muslims and on the Middle East. It also had made security regulation more strict and discriminatory. Since post-9/11, Americans the wrong impression of the Middle East and have negative views of it and also have stereotype of it as well.

On September 11, 2001 America was in shock because of the events that occurred that morning to their beloved world trade center twin buildings. The deaths and injuries caused the people to automatically hate those that were responsible, Al Qaida members. This group is notorious for their dislike of American lifestyles. From then on Americans would go on to keep a close eye on these individuals and people that looked like them. That same year in the United States “58 percent favored Arabs to undergo more lengthy security measures. “From Samuel R. Gross, “Racial Profiling Under Attack”, (June 2002): 1413.

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, media approaches have altered. On Television shows and movies, in newspapers and on the radio, there has been an increase in hate crimes targeting Arabs and Muslims. Most coverage today follows a script that represents Arabs and Muslims only in the context of terrorism. Evelyn Alsultany wrote a book called Arabs and Muslims in the Media in 2012. The stories explained the new standards in racial and cultural representations after 9/11.

In religion class the day after the attack, the question, "What should we do with the Arab-American citizens?" was asked. I felt nauseated. What did that question mean, and why was it asked? My grandfather, "Shid-thie," is from Lebanon, an Arabic country. In fact, he fought for America in World War II. How could anyone question him? Then it hit me - I am Arabic also. Any Arabic person I have met has welcomed me as if I were family, a custom Arabs live by. Now people are making it seem everyone should watch their backs whenever Arabic or Middle Eastern people are around because they may be accomplices.

since September 11th? How have they stayed the same? Because of the media’s portrayal of Arabs as “evil” and “a threat”, most Americans perceived them as such. The Muslim and Middle Eastern community did not have such attention before the incident. Most Americans had already seen Middle Easterners has a strange and dubious group for the customs and common, religious practices; but it only got worse following the attack. Since 9/11, people began to perpetuate the stereotype that “all Middle Easterners/Muslim Americans were terrorists” as well as “all Middle Easterners are Muslim” and the people were consistently scrutinized. These harmful assumptions has instilled a sense of apprehension in the Muslim community due to their fear of being publicly discriminated. In contrast, the attack was not widely approved by Middle Easterners and Muslim community; the community responded by saying that it had been orchestrated by extremists whose action did not represent the entirety of their

On August 28, 1963 there was about 250,000 people who gathered in Washington D.C. to rally against political and social injustices African-Americans face at this time. This rally was meant to not only pressure congress into adopting civil rights legislation, but to also shed awareness to the continuing injustice even after the passing of the Emancipation Declaration . On its 53rd anniversary the march is remembered for the final speech, Martin Luther King Jr's, “I have a Dream.”

Arab Americans have been targets of discrimination long before the 9/11 event happened. If they are immigrants in America, they are seen as bombers or terrorists. And if they are American citizens, they are seen as spies. The way Arabs are portrayed in Hollywood movies have been reflected in the way the government and society as a whole view them. And the way Americans show their discrimination is by rejecting or denying Arabs in all aspects of society which makes it harder for them to succeed. Overall, Arab Americans are seen as dangerous and threatening to Americans. Because they were being harassed all the time, they have a harder time adapting and participating in the American society. All young Americans have a hard time finding

During the First World War, the American government encouraged suspicion of German-Americans. The government was at pains to discourage hostility towards Islamic Americans. The land of your ancestors could have been an enemy of the United States. There are also many different Arab states, and most are allies of the United States, while only a very few are sympathetic to terrorism. Ever since the 9/11 terrorist attack, the United States started being more careful as to who to trust. The United States started to wonder who is really loyal to them, Islamics is being judged and so are the Germans. Everyone is suspicious about "German Americans, Arab Americans, and Arab Americans." There are some Arabs, Germans and Islamic Americans, who oppose

One major social problem that Arab Americans face today, is racism and having been labeled as terrorist. In fact the treatment against Arab Americans is very violent and cruel compared to past decades before. Various reports have inquired that after the 9/11 attack on New York, and other attacks that have happened around the world, people have since then viewed Arab Americans as a different type of people, there are harsh feelings that they don’t belong in the United States, because they are dishonest people, nomads, and users. (The Atlantic, 2016). Although

September 11th holds many hard and upset feelings around the world today. The harsh actions of Muslim extremists unfortunately completely changed the way Muslims are treated, especially in the United States. These events, exacerbated islamophobia. Unfortunately, “the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, connect Muslims and Islam to terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States.” (Byng) Although it has been over a decade since the attack, many still feel racist and discriminatory attitudes towards Muslims. Muslims are the targeted minority in the United States, “the 9/11 terrorist attacks shifted the social and political context for Muslims in the United States. Terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States carried out by Muslims places an identity at the center of national and global politics.” (Byng) The blame of the horrible terrorist attacks, rather than be placed on terrorists or religious extremist, has been placed on Islam in America. After September 11th, hate crimes towards Muslims skyrocketed, “the most dramatic change noted by the report was a more than 1,600 percent increase in reported hate crimes against Muslims -- a jump from 28 hate incidents in 2000 to 481 last year.”

According to Steven Salaita, the author of Anit-Arab Racism in the USA, “Anti-Arab racism has existed in the United States since the arrival of the first Arab in North America, but since 9/11 anti-Arab racism is, to use a cliché, America’s elephant in the living room—an enormous elephant, at that” (Salaita 7). Therefore, it is more accurate to think of 9/11 not so much as the beginning of anti-Arab racism, but rather the turning point of Arab and Muslim American engagements with race and racialization. With this said, we will focus briefly on outlining the events the led to and anti-Arab American perception before 9/11 and primarily on the American perception of people from Middle Eastern decent after 9/11.

Since Islam is a religion that promotes peace and kindness, one could ask where the stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists originated. Following the tragedies of September 11, 2001, Arabs and Muslims have been presented as potential terrorists. This idea stemmed from the theory that, “media bias increases when a specific ethnic, religious, or racial group is seen as a threat to national security.” (Stiffler, 2013). Since the attacks on September 11, 2001 Muslims and Arabs have been “hyper-visible” in the media as potential terrorists. Due to the negative media attention and failure of most media platforms to

I believe they, the Middle Eastern people and Asians were already being stigmatized way before 9/11, especially the Asians during WW II, and it took them 20 years later to repeal the two laws which allowed for imprisonment of people, deemed to be in collaboration with foreign enemies and the second which was the Executive Order 9066, that used the presidential power of the Chief Executive Officer to order the wartime imprisonment of Japanese Americans. Japanese Americans in Concentration Camps. (n.d.). After 9/11 it has become worse, not only for the Middle Eastern people and Asians but for other ethnic people too. There seems to be a mentality or rather narrow mindedness that people have and it is not just in the U.S. but all over, no thanks to the media**.