All my life I’ve been pummeled by stereotyped images of Arabs – in the press, in movies, on television – and in cartoons. So when the Gazette published its cartoon of the various ways Donald Trump might use torture, I should have been inured to the torture victim being a hook-nosed, straggly bearded, keffiyeh-garbed man.
But I’m not. I am still offended. I am still appalled. I still think that the use of these stereotypes in the press has perpetuated our reduction of all Middle Easterners to brutish, cartoon-like characters without history, culture, feelings or family. The stereotyping has still permitted brutish U.S. government intervention, war, and harm in all our names, into Middle Eastern societies, without our understanding or empathy for the real individuals, families, and societies that are there.
It has still prevented many of us who are here from opportunities and achievement if we cannot “pass for white.” I’m not alone in this. I joined the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) as soon as it was formed in 1980. Did I mention that I am Arab-American? Well, as people sometimes say to me, I don’t look Arab, meaning that I don’t reflect any of the stereotypes. Nor of course does John Sununu, George Mitchell, Selma Hayak or many others of Arab descent.
Nor do many of the people caught carrying out or plotting terrorism. The ADC has since its inception published reports, bibliographies and supported the publication of books and films, though it appears that these works are falling into a bleak desert of U.S. opinion and media.
Please, Gazette, do not repeat cartoons like this one. Ask your cartoonists to be culture-neutral in trying to convey their messages, important as these messages are.
Merriam Ansara
Easthampton