Does racism still exist in the U.S.? The answer is yes, it
is still out there. Although public commentary describes the United States as
"post-racial", racism continues to exert a very real and pervasive
influence on institutional policies and processes, interpersonal interactions,
neighborhood infrastructure, socioeconomic opportunities, media imagery, and
more.
"Minorities" is an incorrect term assigned to
races other than white, who are in fact part of a majority. African Americas,
Arabs, Asians, Hispanics, all of those races are a large percentage of U.S.
Population. We are called "minorities" because we are seen as less
than. We can be just as qualified for jobs/positions or even more qualified
than a white person and still lose the position to them because of our race.
The majority of whites seem to be scared of the African
American race as well as other races. The worst part is that just because they
are black, people stereotype them as a person who enjoys rap, lives in the
ghetto and whose life consists of drug dealing and killing. Truly, there are
people like this out there but that doesn't mean, that all of them act like
this. Also, they have a major fear from Arabs; they see us as bombers,
terrorists, serial killers and other unreasonable stereotypes.
This is fueled by the selective media coverage of –what they
call it- terrorists’ attacks by Arabs or Muslims but at the same time they tend
not to cover racist incidents or terror attacks done by a white Americans as
much as they do when Arabs involved. They tend to blame the entire Muslim
religion for an incident done by one Muslim, but when a white person does the
same action, that is described as terror attack –in case of a Muslim doer-,
they tend to minimize the seriousness of the action, give it less coverage and
importance.
Have you ever heard about the two Arabs store clerks who
were shot to death in 2009? Of course not. In January 2009, Memphis store clerk
Mohammed Al Hadi was murdered by an unknown assailant who calmly took aim and
then fired. On the same day, at another grocery story nearby, another Arab
clerk was also murdered.
The two murders came on the heels of the killing on New
Year's Day 2009 of an African American during an angry confrontation with
another Middle Eastern store clerk, who police charged with murder. Following
the shooting, unknown perpetrators set fire to the store and an employee's car,
and activists called for a boycott of "all Arab-owned businesses in the
neighborhood.
This incident reveals a significant problem with likely
underreporting of hate crimes by law enforcement authorities. As of the date of
this report, Memphis Police had classified the deaths of the two Middle Eastern
grocery clerks as robberies, not hate crimes. On March 6, 2009 George Williams
was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in perpetration of a robbery.
Some whites claim that Arabs are not civilized. their view
of civilization is surely different than many other cultures.
Let me say what makes a person civilized? A civilized person sees no
color, no race, religion or separation. A civilized person doesn’t generalize
or attribute a certain characteristic or attitude, he or she has seen in one
person, to the entire race or religion.
In short, America is still a racist country. Some whites are
still racist, they still stereotype Arabs and other races of course, and the
American Media is a main reason for why Whites think that Arabs are terrorists?
The American media still select and highlight incidents carried out by Arabs
and tend to neglect or diminish same incident or even more violent incident
carried out by whites. A Muslim criminal leads to an entire religion guilty but
a white criminal is a mentally disturbed “individual”, that needs a treatment.
