MIFTAH
Thursday, 28 March. 2024
 
Your Key to Palestine
The Palestinian Initiatives for The Promotoion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
 
 
 

The most exhilarating idea emerging from the ongoing and fiercely competitive US primary election has been the likelihood of the Democratic party’s frontrunners - Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - running jointly as members of a “dream ticket” in the upcoming national elections, regardless of who will be president or vice president.

The point to emphasise here is that the pair, each very popular but with a different segment of the population, will mark the first opportunity for a white woman and a black man to run for the country’s two top positions, something unheard of previously because of the ubiquitous racism and sexism in the United States.

Whether this will be the case will depend on many significant factors, not least of all the ongoing racist slurs that are hurled at Obama, the tenderfoot senator from Illinois whose father was a Kenyan Muslim who died in an automobile accident and whose mother, a white American, passed away from cancer. Despite his assertion that he is a practising Christian, he is often suspected by various groups here and overseas that he is a Muslim like his father, pointing that his middle name is Hussein.

A prominent Israeli paper, Maariv, carried a disgusting cartoon showing Obama painting the White House black. Some Israelis and a large section of the American Jewish community are uncomfortable about the likelihood of the junior senator from Illinois becoming the next president.

Sadly, racism and sexism are still prevalent in the American society. I recall when I came with my mother to the United States to attend my brother’s wedding in St. Louis, Mo., the immigration officer in New York corrected my colour on the immigration form to read “olive” rather than “white”, which at the time I disregarded, blaming my suntan acquired on Beirut’s glorious beaches.

Jack Shaheen, a Lebanese-American professor emeritus of mass communication at Southern Illinois University, has just published a new book titled “Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 9/11”, in which he once again lambasts the American movie industry for continuously smearing Arabs and Muslims.

The prominent media critic, described as a “one-man anti-defamation league”, is the author of an earlier pace-setting tome, “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People”, in which he documents and castigates Hollywood’s negative stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims.

“As long as no one contests our nation’s Islamophobia and Arabophobia,” Shaheen told this writer, “the myth, Arab - Muslim - terrorist, will continue to poison our hearts and minds.”

He went on: “Obamaphobia will cease only when courageous movers and shakers begin saying repeatedly and including clear voices: “There’s nothing wrong and everything right about having an American Muslim seeking the presidency of the United States.”

He added: “Vote for Osama Hussein Arafat! When this happens, we Americans will really have come a long way.”

In his new and inspiring book, Shaheen observes that Arabs remain “the most maligned group” in the history of Hollywood.

“Malevolent stereotypes equalling Islam and Arabs with violence have endured for more than a century. Sweeping mischaracterisations and omissions continue to impact us all.”

His bottom line, which Arab-Americans and the Arab world should recognise, is that “the historical and ongoing connection between fiction film, public opinion and public policies is real”.

Despite his shocking revelation that the majority of post-September 11 films continue, as they did in the past, to “vilify” the Arab people, he said he was “somewhat encouraged” that he has seen displayed “at times” on the silver screens “more complex, even-handed Arab portraits than I have seen in the past”. He singled out “Babel”, “Syriana” and “Yes”.

(I would add “Rendition” which I saw last weekend).

Besides Hollywood, Shaheen equally castigates television producers.

Although the majority of the three million Arab Americans are Christians (and “four of five were born in the US) “TV programmes present us as evil Muslims and link the Islamic faith, a religion of peace, with violence”.

Some recent TV producers, however, have eliminated these “devastating” stereotypes. And here Shaheen notes that these positive steps “reflect the wisdom of Senator Hillary Clinton who, early on, stressed the importance of making Arab-American contributions visible”.

He recalled her remarks at a 1986 White House prayer breakfast where she said: “The vast majority of Arabs and Muslims in the United States are loyal citizens. ]Their] daily lives revolve around work, family and community.... It’s not fair to apply a negative stereotype to all [Arabs and] Muslims.”

As a way to do that, Shaheen proposes holding a major US-Arab Entertainment Summit designed “to recognise, contest, and correct images” so as to erase these negative portrayals and humanise Arabs, as has been the case with the Germans and Russians in yesteryears.

Shaheen single handedly took the admirable step of starting a scholarship programme for Arab-American students “to major and excel in media studies” - a step that ought to be duplicated here and in the Arab world.

* An Arab American columnist based in Washington.

 
 
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