On Thursday, May 01, 2008, the Study Abroad Office at California State University, Chico presented an event on the topic of Middle Easterners in the United States. The event took place at Tehama Hall from 6 P.M. to 8 P.M. It featured about an hour long video of the DVD, The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, and another hour long of questions and discussions with the Chico State Arab students leading the way.
The DVD video featured four standup comedians who are of Arabic heritage. Their names are Maz Jobrani, Aron Kadar, Anmed Anmed, and Dean Obeidallan. These guys are great comedians and have appeared on the TV channel, Comedy Central. Their jokes and humors of Middle Easterners living in the United States may be funny on the surface, but underneath them, they raised some serious issues about discrimination of these people. Particularly after September 11, 2001, discrimination and hate crimes shot up off the roof. One of the Saudi Arabian students spoke of her friends experience traveling through the Midwest. Her friend’s family was denied service at restaurant because of the false fear and stereotype of her people. Unfortunately for this family, there are ignorant people out there who judge you only through the color of your skin.
These students, themselves, have experienced certain forms of mistreatment. The airport is a common site where they are viewed with great suspicion. On more than one occasion, these students have been “randomly” selected for additionally screening and questioning. This is really an unfair treatment towards these students. Being singled out in front of a crowd makes anyone feel like a criminal and perhaps create fear in other people of you. Like one of the comedians joked about, more people would fly with snakes than with Middle Easterners.
Some common associations and typical stereotypes of Middle Easterners in the United States as mentioned by the comedians are below.
- Perceive to possess excessive aggression and anger
- Ride camels
- Possess oil in the backyard
- Yell over a normal phone conversation
- Axis of evil
It may be funny to joke about stereotypes, but it is also important that we try to understand that these are only stereotypes and each individual is different and unique in their own way. We cannot make the mistake of holding these stereotypes true. Holding stereotypes true is for certain to lead to misjudgment of others.
I cannot imagine what a struggle it is for these students to try to cope with the social stereotype here in the United States. What you hear on the news about terrorists has nothing to do with these guys. These students are down-to-earth and just like us all. All it takes is just spending some time getting to know them, you will see that there’s no need to be afraid. They’re just like you and me.
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Interesting post Pan. I may say, on the basis of my personal experiences, that getting rid of stereotypes is one of the most difficult jobs a person can accomplish. There seems to be no easy way to it. I had personally adopted a two-way strategy to get rid of stereotypes that had been lurking there in my sub-conscious for a long time. Firstly, I tried to recognise the 'chains' of several identities (ethnic, religious, national, sectarian, gender, professional, etc.) and secondly, I made efforts to recall all the experiences I had with the people of 'other' identities. This led me to think rationally of people and issues related to them in an almost unbiased way.
Very interesting article--and discussion.