While I was reading the articles for class this week, I was really in awe of how much evidence there is in history, in the media; essentially, anywhere you look, about Arabs as second class citizens. The article "The Minority of Suspicion" states that anti-Arab sentiments have "served the interest of colonialism in the West for over a hundred years." This prompted me to think about colonialism and its effects on the world. When we read The Heart of A Chief, we talked about Europeans colonizing the United States, terrorizing and massacring Native Americans and attempting to destroy their culture by dragging their children off to boarding schools. I knew that there was anti-Arab sentiment in the United States after 9/11, that much is obvious. I was not aware that the negative treatment and feelings towards Arab people has been happening in this country for over a decade, as the article "The Minority of Suspicion" stated. I'm currently taking an IAH class about Arabs in America, so I was familiar with a lot of the historical and cultural information from the article.
I was also struck by another quote about the portrayal of Arabs by the media: "This consistent treatment of Arabs in films has become the trademark of the American film industry to such a degree that youngsters are likely to not even be aware that they are observing a dramatically lopsided pitting of good versus evil. Not since cowboys roamed the range killing bad Indians have such stereotyped images been a part of popular culture, and this idea seldom is raised in American classrooms." (34) This quote was particularly significant to me because of the suggestion that people do not even realize that they are looking at images that are likely to lead to negative stereotypes. I am really starting to realize just how much negative stereotyping children are exposed to without even thinking about it. I feel like I have a big responsibility to make my students, even if they are very young, aware of stereotypes and teach them that not all of them are true and some of them can be very harmful and hurtful. I always was aware of this responsibility, but after reading about the negative images of another group in this country, I am feeling a little overwhelmed. How will I have time to teach about dispelling stereotypes while teaching all of the other knowledge my students need? I am worried that I will be an "outsider" to too many groups and that I will present my students with inaccurate information without even meaning to do so. How do we monitor our behavior and our teaching methods so that our students are able to have a greater understanding of multiculturalism and diversity? It seems like a really significant challenge.
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It is a significant challenge but remember you are already educating yourself about diversity, other cultures, etc. So, you are making the first step in the right direction. I am curious about how you feel on the WB schools taking out Habibi - what do you think about that based on what you wrote here?
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