Over the weekend, there was another terrorist threat that happen in NY. The man who plotted it was a Pakistani American named Faisal Shahzad. A news report discussed the surprise of discovering that he is an American, well-educated, and has been living the "American dream" until the recent financial crisis. I thought it was interesting how people still think Middle Easterners and, specifically, terrorists are foreigners, unrelated to Americans in any way.
Anyways, over the last few years, news like these have surfaced often. Americans' view on people from the Middle East has changed since 9/11.
However, the region and the people are still very ambiguous to me. Before 9/11, we know very little about the Middle East besides the fact that it provides us oil. After 9/11, we still understand very little about the people and the region, beside what is shown on T.V. that they are the enemies.
I know there are many stereotypes about Middle Easterners right now, but what I want to know is: has there been racism toward these people even before 9/11? What race was these people categorized under before the word "Middle Eastern" elicits so much emotions and evoke so many ideas. Previously, were they perceived as simply black, white, or Asian, depending on their physical characteristics?
I think the fact that Middle Eastern becomes more popularly viewed as a race after 9/11 shows just how much the categorization of race changes depending on the sociological context.
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I agree. I think that is a good observation. In our lifetimes is it hard to see "middle eastern" people any other way. The description I think was around however before 9/11, perhaps after the Gulf War? The think that I wonder is if "middle easter" which is pc was a substitute for ignorant people calling all individuals who lived in the middle east muslims. Some uneducated people still do not know the difference between Arab people in terms of muslim, arab and islam as descriptors. However, I think that you are correct in noticing that terming someone middle easter is not racially profiling someone and this is recent. This might have occurred since 9/11. It is interesting to see how this groups of people and terms have changes to racialize them bases on social changes.
ReplyDeleteI think a part of taking a group and racializing them is based off feeling powerless. Similar to hispanic immigrants, people feel powerless and they try to racialize the group to take away their power. what do you think?