Arab Americans in the Media

Arabs Americans, and Muslim Arab Americans by association and by direct action have

been increasingly racialized and targeted and discriminated against. These prejudices

have been fueled by the "war on terrorism" media influence. Mainstream media

continues the repetition of the urgent threat of Islam and of the Arabs and Muslims who

represent it. There are many ways for the media to deliver such a message to the

public through respected print, radio and various other news mediums. These

organizations increasingly reflect and reproduce the same global images and incidences

of Arab and Muslim Americans and Islam globally.

Although these media outlets cannot decide for the public and their readers and

Consumers consider race, they are representational of something larger that can

change mainstream beliefs, or main belief about Arab Americans.  It becomes an easy

outlet to discriminate when an American tragedy such as Pearl Harbor, 9-11 and many

others, are tied to a specific nationality or race of people. Arab Americans and Muslim

Americans are represented as highly religious, and strictly more religious than most

Americans. Arab Americans and Muslim Americans are represented as religious devout

Muslims. This assumption leads most Americans to believe that the attacks of 9-11 to

be religiously motivated. Although this may be true for the few men who committed the

act of terrorism, it does not represent the majority of Muslims or Arabs in America.

Arab Americans and Muslim Americans are represented as linked to international

Muslims and Muslim movements, which are themselves are categorized as people of

color, dark and dangerous; this also associates all people of Arab descent as Muslims

which is untrue. Many Arab Americans, like myself, are Christian. Although Arab culture

is widespread the religion has nothing to do with the actions that were committed. The

idea that Muslims and Arabs are against the United States became an ongoing theme in

most media coverage, this made Arab Americans and Muslim Americans target citizens

for discrimination and an ongoing struggle for acceptance and equality and their civil

rights.

By Renee Sweis