American Media Unfairly Stereotypes Arab Americans

To the editors:

It seems that the habit of the American media and government of projecting stereotypes against Arab and Muslim Americans will never end. With the recent crash of the EgyptAir Flight 990, we have once again witnessed just how out-of-hand these implications can get.

Last week, with no leads on a mechanical cause for the crash of the flight, the case's investigator told the Associated Press that the Egyptian Muslim co-pilot had made a "cryptic reference to Allah" (News, Nov. 17) as the plane was going down. Had it been a Christian American pilot crying "God help me," such a suggestion would never have been made.

Immediately, newspapers and television stations across the country picked up on this, and this man, who had a clean record and no history of any misdeeds, was implicated as the cause of this horrible event. Days later, after a little more thoughtful consideration, the statement was withdrawn, but the consequences could not be retracted.

Arabs and Muslims around the country added one more item to their list of prejudiced blunders against their culture.

Indeed, this is not the first nor will it be the last error of its kind. Immediately after the Oklahoma City bombing, many officials and journalists were quick to announce that the most likely culprits were the local Arab and Muslim communities, and the FBI put out two sketches of "Middle Eastern looking" individuals who were suspected of planting the bomb. In fact, one "expert," Steven Emerson, who recently visited Harvard and gave a talk about the dangers of Islam in America, was quoted as saying, "This was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible. That is a Middle Eastern trait." It wasn't long before these vicious stereotypes were proven wrong, once the real criminal, an American Neo-Nazi, was exposed.

Just to list one more event, we can look to the TWA flight 800 crash in 1996. Once again, even before investigators had time to explore mechanical causes for the airplane's crash, experts were already pointing fingers at Arabs and Muslims, and once again, no apology was made when the real reason, a frayed wire, was discovered.