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From True Lies to American Sniper, from 24 to Call

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of Duty: Modern Warfare, Western media is full of

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images of evil brown people who need to be wiped

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from the earth by noble, righteous white men

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heroically fighting for freedom and justice. And

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sure, it’s so commonplace by this point that maybe

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you don’t even bat an eye at old-fashioned American

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Islamophobia in our media.

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Whoa! Even Back to the Future? that beloved comedy

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classic, takes a moment to toss in a few scary

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brown men to menace and terrorize our white heroes!

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Unfortunately, we can’t hop in Doc Brown’s DeLorean

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and undo all the harmful representations of

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Muslims, Arabs and Middle-Easterners that have

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haunted our stories since...well, basically the

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Crusades. But we can try to make sure history

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doesn’t keep repeating itself.

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Okay, maybe that’s not entirely fair. In some ways,

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things have changed. Once upon a time, non-white

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actors could hardly get any work in Hollywood at

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all. These days, shows like Homeland and movies

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like Executive Decision are providing some brown

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actors with ample opportunity to portray scary

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terrorists who get gunned down while screaming

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something absurd like “Death to America”. It

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doesn’t even matter if you’re not actually of

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Middle-Eastern descent! If you’re vaguely brown,

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you can stick around (to play bad guys).

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Now, sure, not every Middle-Eastern character in

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films is a villain. In the 1921 box-office smash

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The Sheik, the dashing hero gets the girl in the

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end. But the Arab world of the film is presented as

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exotic and dangerous, and the sheik himself, the

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one good, heroic Arab, is played by Italian-

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American heartthrob Rudolph Valentino! You see,

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since he’s not really Arab, he’s allowed to get the

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girl in the end.

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If you think this kind of racist coding to signify

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the difference between “good Arabs” and “bad Arabs”

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went away with the advent of talkies, think again.

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Have you ever noticed how, in Disney’s Aladdin, the

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good guy might as well be a tanned American surfer

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dude...

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...but the bad guys look and sound a little

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more…”Arab”?

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While Hollywood historically has sometimes given

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“good Arab” roles to non-Arab actors, it has also

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sometimes given not-so-good Arab and South Asian

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roles to white actors, too, denying brown people

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work and decent on-screen representation in one

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fell swoop. It’s the world’s worst Catch 22! For

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example, take “Mr. Habib,” the scheming Middle-

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Eastern villain in Father of the Bride Part 2 who

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is played by Eugene Levy.

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Those aren’t even real words he says to his wife!

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It’s just vaguely Middle-Eastern sounding

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gibberish! [PAUSE-RESET] And the written equivalent

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of this is very common as well: video games and TV

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shows constantly just toss up some squiggly text

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and try to pass it off as actual Arabic!

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Well, this one is Arabic, but it sure doesn’t say

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what the Homeland producers wanted it to!

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As insidious as it is to flatten entire cultures

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and populations into The Land of Squiggly Writing,

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there is nothing so pervasive and damaging as

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Hollywood’s tendency to constantly portray vaguely

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Middle-Eastern people as generic terrorists. It’s

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so common that on screen, brown skin has

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practically become synonymous with bad guys who

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have little or no character development beyond

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hating America and freedom fries. One of the

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biggest problems with this is that it erases the

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actual lives and cultures of Middle-Eastern people,

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and leads many Western viewers to lump all of them

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into the same group.

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So let’s start by clarifying a few terms whose

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meaning has been obscured by media that paints the

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entire Middle East with the same broad, shallow,

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ignorant brush.

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First of all, we’ve done a lot of research on this

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and as it turns out, words actually have meanings!

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Weird, right? You can’t just lump Arabs and Muslims

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together because they are not the same thing! Arabs

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are a specific ethnic group, united by culture and

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language, and who primarily originate from middle

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eastern countries. Arab is not, repeat NOT, a

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racial category. Got that? You can be white, black,

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brown and still be Arab. But not all people from

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the Middle East are Arab and vice versa -- like,

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oh say, ethnic Persians in Iran.

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A Muslim is someone who practices Islam, a religion

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with over 1.7 billion members spanning a vast

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number of ethnic and cultural identities. The

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“Muslim world” actually comprises a multitude of

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groups that folks often forget, including:

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Iranians, South Asians, North Africans,

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Indonesians, black Americans. Islam is not confined

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to the Middle East, to olive-skinned people, or

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just people who speak Arabic.

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But despite the fact that Islam is a religion, not

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a race, it’s vital for us to understand that

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Islamophobia is racism. [SHIFT] If you’ve been

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paying attention thus far, then you might be asking

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yourself, “If Islam isn’t a race, then how can

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Islamophobia be racism?” The answer lies in another

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“-ism,” one many Westerners aren’t particularly

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familiar with: Orientalism.

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In short, the term Orientalism refers to how, for

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hundreds of years, Western artistic and academic

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history has perpetuated an ignorant and prejudiced

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view of the East. A view rooted in the idea of

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Western culture as inherently more advanced and

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enlightened, and Eastern culture as inherently more

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ignorant, irrational, primitive, and often, highly-

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sexualized. Again, Muslims come from many different

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races and span a myriad of cultural identities. In

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fact, the former president of the Islamic Society

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of North America is a white woman, Dr. Ingrid

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Mattson. But let’s be real: nobody who spreads the

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hate of Islam is talking about white ladies.

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Western media has contributed to a level of

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ignorance so great that for many people it has

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resulted in equating Islam with scary brown people,

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particularly scary brown men, from the Middle East.

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It’s been so effective that most of you probably

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didn’t even know that this man isn’t Muslim, he’s

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Sikh!

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Sikhism and Islam are two completely different

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religions! The fact that Sikhs are so often the

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targets of anti-Muslim hate crimes makes it crystal

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clear that Islamophobia is all about race. The only

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reason some Sikhs--those with brown skin--are

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sometimes the targets of Islamophobic violence is

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that they are also perceived as Middle-Eastern, and

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Middle-Eastern is perceived as Muslim, and Muslim

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is perceived as scary!

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Whew! Thanks, Jack Bauer, what would we do without

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you It isn’t just film and television that

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perpetuates this kind of ignorance. Here’s comedian

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Kumail Nanjiani on how video games often don’t put

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in even the absolute bare minimum of effort or

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research when representing the Middle East.

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Modern films, TV shows and games definitely

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perpetuate Islamophobia, but it’s no exaggeration

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to say that ignorant representations of people from

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the Middle-East in Western media date back for

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centuries. Orientalist paintings of the 1800s were

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often characterized by overly sexualized depictions

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of daily life, and Romantic Orientalist literature

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of the late 1700s and early 1800s served to justify

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European imperialism by presenting Middle-Eastern

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people and cultures as inherently exotic and

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strange.

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So there’s a conflation of Arab with Muslim, and

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because our ideas about Islam are so deeply linked

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to stereotypes about terrorism and violence, both

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of those categories are associated with masculinity

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and men. While many male Muslim actors in Hollywood

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can only find work playing bit parts as evil

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terrorists, [SAD] Muslim women are often erased

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altogether. The very real advances that Arab women

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have made in many parts of the world are ignored

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because depicting them would complicate the

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simplistic racist narrative about Arabs and

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Muslims, that Hollywood continues trying to cash in

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on. [SARCASM] It’s *almost as if* we don’t know how

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to contend with women as real people.

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Filmmakers and TV producers know how to objectify

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women, how to prize them for their physical

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attributes and their appearance. The stories we

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allow ourselves to tell about the Middle East, with

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its different cultural mores, don’t allow for the

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same kind of easy objectification of these brown

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women’s bodies -- and so we resist including them

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at all.

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And when Arab or Muslim women do appear, they’re

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either offered as mysterious, sexually wanton

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creatures who offer temptations for white male

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heroes -- think belly dancing seductresses if the

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story is set in the past -- or niqab-clad secret

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purveyors of violence, if the story is set in the

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present.

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At least we can thank 24 again for casting the

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great Iranian actor Shohreh Aghdashloo show-RAY ag-

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DASH-loo in season four as a Muslim terrorist who

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is also a wife and mother! [PAUSE] But there are

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artists, critics, and writers who are out there

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speaking about what it means to be the target of

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all-this anti-brown racism, and a lot of the most

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interesting critiques are coming from Muslim women

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themselves. Oh crap, I think we just missed a call

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from Muslim comedian, Zahra Noorbakhsh … let’s see

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if she left a message, cause I know she has

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feelings about all this.

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Oh crap, I think we missed a call, I wonder who it

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could be. To the feminist answering machine.

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There’s tremendous harm in centuries of images that

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reduce entire nations, cultures and religions to

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the status of subhuman savages. As Jack Shaheen,

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the author of Reel Bad Arabs, has said,

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In the wake of the September 11th attacks [PAUSE]

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former “Worst President Ever” George W. Bush used

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the term “axis of evil” to describe nations

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including Iran and Iraq, in an effort to drum up

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support for the “War on Terror”. And it worked.

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More recently, during the 2016 presidential

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campaign Republican candidates tossed around the

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phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” as if it were

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some kind of magic spell they could use to make

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votes appear out of thin air.

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And again, it worked! The only reason tactics like

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these have any effect is that, to so many

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Americans, people in the Middle East have never

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been established as human beings, with real lives,

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hopes, dreams, and struggles. [SERIOUS] When almost

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every story you’ve ever seen about a particular

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part of the world paints the people who live there

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AS monolithic, evil, and scary, you’re a lot more

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likely to believe that it’s actually true.

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When people believe it's true, they aren't just

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more likely to support politicians or policies that

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appeal to fear and ignorance about the Middle East.

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They're also more likely to act on that fear and

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ignorance themselves. The Southern Poverty Law

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Center notes that the number of anti-Muslim hate

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groups tripled in the United States in 2016. The

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American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee noted

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the same increase after the release of patriotic

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fever dream, American Sniper. 2016 also saw a 67%

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increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes, and there's no

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question that Trump's racist, fear-mongering

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rhetoric has played a part in this surge of

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xenophobia and violence. Of course, Trump doesn’t

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stop with rhetoric himself. Within the first 100

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days of his presidency:

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He has repeatedly tried to push through bans

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preventing the citizens of several Muslim-majority

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countries from entering the United States.

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He dropped the US military’s most powerful non-

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nuclear bomb on Afghanistan.

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And he fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at, I don’t know,

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some Middle-Eastern country while eating the most

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beautiful piece of chocolate cake!

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Iraq, Syria, what’s the difference?! It was one of

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those countries the evil, scary brown people live

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in.

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Now, I can already hear the army of Richard

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Dawkins-parroting, anti-feminist Twitter users typing

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up their responses about how Islam is a religion

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dedicated to oppressing women. It’s amazing how

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suddenly everybody’s a feminist when it lets them

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perpetuate hate against brown people or dismiss

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concerns about how women are oppressed in their own

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culture. So let’s be clear, misogyny is not a

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problem with Islam; misogyny is a problem that some 
cultures which happen to be Muslim use the religion

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to perpetuate and justify. Christianity has been

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used as a tool to oppress women around the world

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for millennia! It’s specifically because our media 
perpetually equates Islam -- a religion followed by

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nearly ¼ of the world’s population -- with evil,

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terrorism, and oppression, that so many people

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believe that’s what Islam actually is.

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And make no mistake: Islamophobia is big business –

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- and not just for Hollywood. Hundreds of millions

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of dollars each year go into feeding what activist

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Taz Ahmed calls “the fear industrial

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complex that perpetuates racism.” Devious Russian

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generals and Nazi scientists from the Cold War

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won’t prop up our defense industry anymore, so we

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needed some new bad guys. Come on it’s not like

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we’re just going to stop making bombs, right?

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Our entertainment media's insistence on constantly

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portraying people from the Middle East as scheming

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oil sheiks, slavers, snake charmers and suicide

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bombers--but never as real people--has real

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consequences. Muslims here in the U.S., and

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everyone who is or looks like they could be Middle

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Eastern, constantly face ignorance and racism. They

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live in fear of the very real possibility of being

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accosted or attacked because someone takes a look

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at them and associates them with everything they've

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seen in the movies and everything the president has

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said about people from the Middle East. What we

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need now are more stories that dispel the deeply

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harmful stereotypes and encourage us to see people

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from the Middle East--whether they're Arab or

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Muslim or neither or both--as what they REALLY are:

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human beings.

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