Too many stereotypes about Arab-Americans

In recent times, there has been a rapid increase in the stereotype threat among the minority groups living in the U.S. Stereotype threat describes the momentary and temporary state of conscious anxiety that might be activated from a particular kind of situation. Stereotype threat might not occur as a result of global feelings of inferiority or self-hatred, rather it occurs only in specific situations when people become responsive about the content of the negative stereotype that might provide a plausible behavior of their situations.

One social psychological process behind stereotype threat is the "attribution error." It is beneficial to apply Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) to find out the influences involved in the stereotype faced by minority groups. The FAE demonstrates that situational influences matter greatly but we tend to discount them in our lay attributions of social causality in favor of internalized trait attributes.

The stereotypes of Muslims and Arabs have become one of the important issues presented in different forms by mass media in Western and American culture. The consequences of the incident of Sept. 11, 2001 have increased the targeting of the Muslims and Arabs in America. The stereotyping of Arab Muslims is evident from the American films in which Muslims are not depicted as common and usual individuals, people with societal interactions or exceptional members of the community such as scientists, scholars or writers. The media has portrayed Arabs as terrorists, and the U.S. government fails to implement any law that is against the racial disparity, disproportion and inequality. Many famous American films and television shows depict the negative images of the Muslims and Arabs to the audience. The educators of the country do not pay much attention to correct this prejudice and bias. Most of them fail to recognize the racism of the anti-Arab as one of the emerging problems in society.

In spite of  the multicultural viewpoint that presently exists in the education of America, most of the educators, teachers and public are unable to sensitize the problems and issues of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab stereotyping. Although there is much curricula that deals with the culture and heritage of Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans and Asian/Pacific Islanders, it is not unusual for them to disregard and ignore the issues of racism related to Arabs.

Similar to many other ethnicities, Arab Americans often come across unconstructive and negative stereotypes that are masked in the form of "absurdity." When they raise the question about this, they are informed that the disparaging remarks were not intended to be taken critically.

In addition to this, most of the American people consider all Saudis to have similar lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors. They think that all Saudis are rich, wealthy and prosperous. The American people dismiss the capability and aptitude of Saudis and believe that they are not capable of performing well in schools. Such types of condemnation and criticism on the part of their race and ethnicity affect their self-esteem and confidence, which may lead to them not being able to perform better in school. In reality, Saudis are intelligent, hardworking, creative thinkers and inventors.

In my opinion, it is important for the U.S. government to stop the prejudice-biased concepts between Arab Muslims and Americans so that Arab Muslims have equal chances to go ahead in their daily lives by effective evaluation of their skills and talents. It is also important that several opportunities be provided to Arab students in order to enhance their potential and help them to perform better in their academic tasks. At present, emphasis should be put on the awareness of the public toward these issues, as greater public acknowledgement and awareness would help to construct the positive solutions to solve these problems on a broader level.