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TAREQ SINIORA
Professor HOLLY BATTY
ENG 114A
19 October 2014
Stereotypes against Arabs

There are numerous stereotypes that exist and most if not all race groups are victims of
these stereotypes. For example all Chinese are straight A students or he is black so he is most
definitely aggressive and dumb the list just keeps on going. Even though many stereotypes exist
none are depicted as bad as the Arab. In my opinion stereotype and racism come hand in hand,
both deny people of their humanity.

There are many stereotypes subjected towards Arabs, ever since the media was born it
made matters worse for the Arabs. Firstly the stereotype that is used by the majority of the world
is that whenever they think of an Arab they immediately view him/her as Muslim which of
course is very incorrect in fact many Arabs are Christians. Another stereotype which is also
widely used is that all Arabs are wealthy and they have enough money for their great great
grandsons to live a prosperous life without them ever even working, this certainly is erroneous,
and many Arabs are homeless and spend days living on a piece of cheap, dry bread. An
additional stereotype about Arabs is that they all live in tents and ride camels to work. The
most important stereotype that is used to depict Arabs is that they are terrorist. Arabs are
constantly portrayed as the bad people, this is especially true after 9/11, when a group of
extremists, and terrorists committed a gruesome act, but that does not mean that every Arab is a

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terrorist. The fanatic group responsible for this horrible act does not represent us Arabs. The
image built is one that Arab people may never escape.

Without any hesitation the power of the media has to influence stereotypes is clear. In
whatever form it may have the media has its ways to manipulate with peoples minds and
thoughts. In this first image an American man is reading the newspaper about an Attack on
America and thinking HOW CAN SOMEONE HAVE SO MUCH BLIND HATRED
TOWARD AN ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE, and he is blindly accepting the reality that is
given to him without ever questioning it, and afterwards he wears a shirt saying DEATH TO
ALL ARABS contradicting himself and to all is the key words that they are not targeting the
real terrorists Arabs but all Arabs.

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In this second picture it sums up many stereotypes against Arabs in one picture. We also
can see how the media vilifies the Arabs. The scene is called GOOD AMERICAN GUYS
VERSUS BAD ARAB GUYS again the Arabs always depicted as bad people. In addition look
how the bad Arabs is portrayed, he is in a desert with a beard and a moustache and explosives
wrapped around his body. Paying attention to detail you can see that next to the film title it is
written TAKE $, this shows us typical Hollywood. In the majority of these movies the
American is always portrayed as good but this is far from reality. Why does not the media
represent the Americans as bad for many of their atrocities their people once committed? The
Arabs are targeted because it is much easier for people to accept it. With people constantly being
fed these images of Arabs it becomes a lot easier to manipulate their way of thinking.

From all these stereotypes, a lot of unpleasant events occurred to the Arabs, the most
significant is that their humanity was stolen from them; also some unfortunate Arabs were

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victims of hate crimes ,especially after 9/11.Isnt that terrorism? Why did nobody say its an act
of terrorism and label it as crimes? Isnt it inhumane to murder these innocent humans for
something a group of extremists who does not represent them have done? There is bad in every
corner of the world done by people from every race, but it is unjust to categorize one whole
ethnicity for the action of a group of people.

Work Cited

First picture: https://now.mmedia.me

Second picture is by Carlos Latuff a Brazillian freelance political cartoonist.

5 Common Arab Stereotypes In Television And Film article on About News by

Nadra Kareem Nittle a Race Relations Expert.