The Way to Combat Stereotype in the U.S.

America has the stereotyped image of Arabs and African Americans. Jack G Shaheen is mass communication teacher at University. His family came from Lebanon. He wrote “The Media’s Image of Arabs” in 1992. In his essay he cautions Americans have negative stereotyped image of Arabs influenced by hostile and one-sided media. Brent Staples was born in 1951 in Chester, Pennsylvania. He holds Ph. D. in psychology. He wrote “Night Walker” in 1986. In his essay he writes his experiences with prejudice and discrimination to African Americans. In America, Arabs and African Americans have not been treated as citizen by American. Both of writers looked for the way to avoid the prejudice and discrimination. Shaheen’s strategy of combating them is more effective than Staples’ strategy, because Shaheen combated against prejudice and discrimination of big society. Staples just got used to the small society with the prejudice and discrimination.

In Shaheen’s essay, the image of Arabs is rich, dangerous, threatening, terrorist, and enemy though America is friendly with 19 of 21 Arab nations. The image came from the media such as TV and movie. Media images are almost invariably hostile and one-sided.

For example, Arabs are portrayed as bad men in the TV. “To child, the world is simple: good versus evil.” (Shaheen, P.392) The child is under the impression that Arabs is enemies. When the children become adult, they don’t leave the negative stereotyped image. They were influenced by hostile and one-sided media. They can not change the negative stereotyped image of Arabs, though some journalist told the other information such as “more humane images of Arabs” (Shaheen, P.393). Shaheen researched the media’s impression on the image of Arabs by watching some media, and knew most Americans have negative image of Arabs. Some journalists started not to write one-sided image for telling the truth. It is not easy to change the image. He asked not only journalist but also politicians to...