Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Gee, I think maybe it really began in earnest on 9/11…the subsequent beheadings and thousands upon thousands of terrorist attacks on innocent people worldwide might have something to do with it, as well.

Ya think?

American culture’s view of American Muslims, radical Islam, and Jihad is steadily deteriorating under an onslaught of “bigotry” on cable news shows, newspaper op-ed pages and in the blogosphere, an Arab-American activist told an audience at Tulane University here Tuesday.

That’s a significant shift, said Hussein Ibish, founder of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership in Washington, D.C.

Decades before 9/11, Hollywood handed Americans the perceived wisdom on Arabs as passionate, hyper-sexed, irrational and cruel. Movies such as Rudolph Valentino’s 1921 silent classic The Sheik and turn-of-the-century thrillers such as The Rules of Engagement portrayed Arabs only as terrorists, Ibish said.

Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, however, Hollywood has backed off. In the meantime, Ibish said, commentators and politicians on the right — and a few on the left — have replaced film stereotypes with hours of air time devoted to misrepresenting Islam and fueling suspicion about American Muslims.

(AFP)