Author granted license

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Summer 2002

ISSN

0271-3519

Publisher

Pluto Journals

Language

en-US

Abstract

THE DEMONIZING OF ARABS AND Muslims in America began well before the terrible tragedy of September 11, 2001. It can be traced to deliberate mythmaking by film and media,2 stereotyping as part of conscious strategy of 'experts' and polemicists on the Middle East,3 the selling of a foreign policy agenda by US government officials and groups seeking to affect that agenda,4 and a public susceptible to images identifying the unwelcome 'other* in its midst.5 Bearing the brunt of these factors are Arab and Muslim non-citizens in this country. A series of government laws and policies since the 1970's have steadily targeted Arab and Muslim non-citizens for selective interrogation,6 detention,7 harassment,8 presumption of terrorist involvement,9 and removal from this country.10 The Patriot Act,11 recent round-up and detention of over 1,00012 and list of interrogation targets of 5,000 individuals,13 and the Presidential Order to establish quasi-military 'tribunals'14 exacerbate the selective targeting of Arab and Muslim non-ci completely sanctions blatant racial profiling.

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