Page - 193 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Kenneth Starck | Perpetuating Prejudice 193 NPR (National Public Radio). They sifted through nearly 136 million words. They discovered the invisible Arab – references were made to Arabs only about one hundredth of one percent. Further, they found an “overwhelming association in the media between Arabs and violence, threats, and war, which serves to foster the stereotypes of ‘Arab as barbarian/aggressor/terrorist’” (p. 165). Books, including novels and textbooks, also have been scrutinized in efforts to identify inaccuracies, bias, and distortion. Seldom have the investigators come away empty handed. In an informal analysis of contem- porary writing (e.g., biographies, histories, novels with Leon Uris’ Exodus [published in 1958] serving as a prototype of popular literature), Terry concluded that the works demonstrated “the pervasive negative character of the portrayal of Islam and Arabs throughout a wide variety of popular writing” (1985, p. 107). In her study of children’s books, both fiction and nonfiction and over an extended period of time, Little (1998) identified five patterns of representation of Arabs, all associated with neocolonialism – Arabs are: (1) dirty and lazy; (2) ignorant, superstitious, and silly; (3) irrational, cruel, and violent; (4) guilty of mistreating women; and (5) hateful of Christians and engage in slave trade. From an historical perspective, she concluded that prevailing Arab stereotypes “are as deeply ingrained in Western teachings as mistrust of the West is a part of the typical Arab worldview”, that the images simply “have been updated, dressed in the fashion of the time, directed at children, yet deliver the same negative message” (p. 267). Other scholars also have pointed out how stereotypes somehow maintain their stereotypical tendencies yet change with events and the fashion of the time. Crime fiction centering on the Middle East provides another example. Simon found that writers had slightly altered the stereotyping of Arabs but basically perpetuated those stereotypes. The stereotypes had morphed, as Simon in her study of The Middle East in Crime Fiction, wrote, from an era of “camels to Cadillacs” and “nomad to petrosheikh” (1989, pp. 34-35). A study of the first 100 years (1888 to 1989) of the popular U.S. magazine National Geographic also added to the notion that old stereotypes do not die; at best, they become clothed in new attire. Analyzing articles and photographs, Steet provides numerous examples of racist, colonialist, and sexist bias (2000). After her exhaustive analysis, Steet wrote that she found so little change “disturbing if for no other reason than that one would have liked to think that certain stereotypes and assumptions eventually die of old age” (p. 154). To be sure, changing contexts and circumstances can figure prominently in how different groups, including Arab Americans, are portrayed over time. In a study of news media coverage of Arab American reactions to the 1991