Western Ethnocentrism Is A Major Reason For Divisions Amongst Members Of Different Ethnicities Races And Religious Groups

Arabs, Arab Americans, and Muslims are often stereotyped in movies as sheiks, barbarians, or terrorist. As many Muslim Americans are visibly culturally distinct, it would be of value to explore whether attitudes of non-Muslims toward Muslim Americans resemble attitudes expressed by European non-Muslims toward members of these minority groups.

I believe Americans may be somewhat more ethnocentric than people in other Western industrial nations. This might be the case because many Americans feel superior and more advanced than other ethnic groups. Most of the time, Americans ignore the fact that different cultures and ethnicities make up America. A few of many reasons why Americans may feel exceptional is because of all the opportunities their country offers them, how well the government values the people and how other countries appreciate America. Even though America is multicultural, the way Americans take pride in their country may come off as ethnocentric. Linton Ralph’s article “One Hundred Percent American” assures that the American culture is shaped around all kinds of ethnic

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to assume that ones own culture and way of life represents the norm or is superior to others. Americans in particular tend to be very ethnocentric in part because the United States has been perceived as a superpower for most of its existence, and in part because of the global influence of American media. Patriotism and love for ones country is also instilled in Americans from an early age to a greater extent then in other countries. For example, American children recite to the pledge of allegiance to begin each new school day and the national anthem is played at most sporting events.

In this tedtalk, Melissa Boigon, who studies Islam and its relationship to the Arab-Israeli conflict, talks about how Islamophobia has become more of a fear of Arabs over the last 10 years. She thinks that has to do with the connotation to terrorists groups such as Al-Qaeda, and the way middle east conflict is portrayed in The United States today. She also discusses how American Entertainment portrays Arabs, saying that it's propaganda in the form of entertainment.

Today one does not even have to wait for a movie to be released. Simply click the “ON” button on a remote and suddenly, thousands of news and television shows are available for one to enjoy. Muslims are also the target of prejudice in these news broadcasts and programs. One such television program released was a drama titled “24.” Issues and Controversies reports: “The show, which deals with a counterterrorism unit based in Los Angeles, featured a group of Muslim terrorist characters who were plotting to detonate nuclear weapons in the U.S. At the end of one episode, the terrorists successfully detonated a small bomb in a Los Angeles suburb, killing about 12,000 people” (“Race and Ethnicity in Entertainment”). This fictional show wrongly spreads the stereotypical image of Muslims and their clichéd image of the fundamentalists on 9/11. By adding the title and image of “Muslim” to the phrase “terrorist” the program wrongly advertised that potentially every Muslim could be a terrorist. This stereotypical image is similarly expressed in news broadcasts through the use of terrorism news. By increasingly using terrorism and Muslims in top

To start off, education is huge when analyzing ethnocentrism. Throughout my years of social studies and history classes the textbooks emphasize the victories of America, the times in which people from the U.S. were heroic and brave and fought in the face of hardship. However, these historical accounts merely account for a single side of the story when in fact there were many more events to be shared. The textbooks tilt the perspective of the important events to show the Americans as winners. They do not show triumphs against the U.S. or times when our people were defeated as much as they do the victorious moments, for that would display weakness. There is an article in the book that speaks about this topic specifically. Writing the textbook in an ethnocentric way denies the students the much more objective chance to learn about other cultures outside of the U.S. (Textbook, pg. 68) This act of showcasing the successes of America in a way that disregards any other country or culture tells the reader that America is the best, that we are superior and undefeatable. Emphasizing superiority then in turn creates an inferiority of others as well. (Textbook, pg. 68) The students, at a very young age are told that the United States of America is a country that wins. These books are taught

As I begin to type this essay, I cannot help but feel an oquet barcode over my head. This barcode, having been with me since birth, contains all of the terms used to describe me: Muslim, Brown skinned, Arab American. These terms, a result of the natural human characteristic to categorize what we see, are fallible, inaccurate, and potentially dangerous. For example, because of these terms entire groups of people can become labeled to certain attributes. As an Arab American, people assume many things about before I even speak with them.It is hard to have a different view of people when all you see or hear of them are from indirect sources such as the media, whose priority object is to make profit, even if it requires the creation of a twisted

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.

When the movie “The Siege” starring Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington premiered in 1998, it was met with protest in Michigan. Nizam Arain, who belongs to the Muslim Community Association thought that Hollywood went too far with the Arab stereotype. He was quoted as saying: “To have the American public aware of the existence of Muslim terrorists is the job of the news media. But the purpose of the film is entertainment” (CNN 1998). After September 11, 2001, Arab-Americans were the targets of hate. “Mosques were firebombed, Arab-Americans were vocally abused and physically attacked, and at least six persons of Arab descent were murdered” (Lester 2002). This can be attributed to the false stereotype that the media created that all Arabs are terrorists, because that is what they are predominately portrayed as.

Ethnocentrism is defined as, “having or based on the idea that your own group or culture is better or more important than others.” Society is impacted by everything from media exposure to political agendas. A good example of this can be found in America’s recent history with countries in the Middle East. Issues ranging from energy and oil to a campaign against terrorism have created strained relationships between the United States and countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result, it is nearly impossible to watch an evening news program on American television that does not contain a story related to current events in the Middle

Millions of people globally supported the ‘war on terror’ at one time, largely because the discourse around it was successful in divisively framing the identities involved and attributing a ‘truthful’ nature to that framing. Governments, with the Bush administration seemingly as the lead, created ‘the other’ to be ‘the terrorist’, and those ‘terrorists’ were probably Muslim or Arab. The fear was then created by the comparison of this ‘other’ to the self; or ‘them vs. us’.

A current cultural conflict taking place in America today is religious. Many Americans discriminate against the Islamic faith and there have been countless acts of mistreatment of Muslims in the work place, at school, in public, and in the media. Negative feelings and acts toward Muslims have become so prevalent that in 1991 the Runnymede Trust Report coined a term for it. The report defined the “unfounded hostility toward Muslims, and therefore fear or dislike of all or most Muslims” as “Islamophobia” (Defining “Islamophobia”). There has always been some religious cultural conflict with Muslims in the United States, but since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, conflict has escalated significantly.

In the days after September 11, 2001, American leaders rushed to portray Islam as a peaceful religion that had been "hijacked" by a fanatical band of terrorists. One hopes that these assurances were merely tactical—that nobody was meant to believe them and that they were meant to assure the Muslim world that the inevitable American

Syed Soharwardy asserts that “Media always tried to portray Islam as a religion of terror and all the Muslims as terrorists. The way the talk-show programs and news are produced and presented, it seems that the media has already decided the guilty verdict, regardless what would be the outcome of an investigation” (Soharwardy). So too do members of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee recognize the media’s predisposition toward bias, as is pointed out in this statement, found on their website: “Key industries of American mass culture, Holllywood and television, for decades have been bastions of anti-Arab stereotyping, and have consistently resisted positive or realistic representations of Arabs and Arab Americans. (Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee).”

"The US media has been clubbing together terrorism and Islam, influencing the American public to think that all Arab Muslims are "crazy and violent terrorists"… The American media has been a primary agent responsible for creating racist stereotypes, images and