The American fixation with race and Arabs

By Ray Hanania on November 9, 2013 • ( 2 )

The American fixation with race and Arabs

Saudi Gazette, Sunday Nov. 10, 2013

By RAY HANANIA

Los Angeles International Airport (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last week, a terrorist pulled out an automatic weapon in the middle of Los Angeles International Airport and started shooting apparently targeting members of the airport’s security team working for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Days later, another killer opened fire on a shopping mall in Teaneck, New Jersey.

It’s moments like these acts of incredible violence that make me apprehensive as an American Arab.

Both Los Angeles and New Jersey have large Arab and Muslim populations. My first thought when I hear such news is always, “I hope an Arab or a Muslim wasn’t involved as the shooter.”

It’s kind of a selfish habit or fear that I have developed and that many Arabs and Muslims in America have developed over the years, especially after Sept. 11, 2001.

Americans have deluded themselves into falsely believing that acts of heinous violence are perpetrated by Arab or Muslim terrorists, so Arabs and Muslims become the first suspects.

Whenever an Arab or Muslim kills civilians and police anywhere in the world, the Western media jumps all over it, feeds the anger that grows and Arabs and Muslims who had nothing to do with the tragedy are immediately targeted by haters in this country.

It doesn’t matter whether the shooter or killer is an Arab or a Muslim, or both. Most Americans are so uneducated about the differences that they just assume Arabs and Muslims are all the same, even though the majority of Arabs in America, for example, are Christian, like most Americans are themselves.

But stereotypes that feed hatred thrive not on facts or knowledge but on fear, anger, and racism. In both of the recent cases, though, the killers were white men.

At Terminal 3 at Los Angeles Airport, the killer was identified as Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23 years old. His attack took the life of TSA officer Gerardo Hernandez, 39, who is the first from the agency to have been killed in the line of duty. Six airport commuters were injured in the cold attack. Ciancia was shot and seriously wounded.

Just before the shopping mall in Teaneck was scheduled to close, 20-year-old Richard Shoop, also a white man, began firing his automatic weapon randomly at shoppers. Fortunately, no one was injured or killed and after an all-night standoff, he committed suicide.

When the incidents happened, I posted on my Facebook and Twitter pages that I was relieved that the killers were not Arab or Muslim, noting that I always become apprehensive and scared after a tragedy like this because so many Americans automatically suspect that the killers are Arab or Muslim terrorists.

Americans have been conditioned to believe this through years of hate and racism in America, a country that took the slavery of Africans and other non-whites to its highest level of industrialized sophistication until it was outlawed in the 1860s. Racist hatred, however, continued for more than 100 more years marked by lynchings, bombings and assassinations of black leaders.

I was amazed when several white people who had “friended” my Facebook Page or are “following” me on Twitter expressed shock at my declaration of relief. “What are you talking about?” they protested. “What does his white race have to do with anything?”

I agree, what does the killer’s race have to do with anything or his religion, for that matter? But the truth is that there is a clearly defined double standard in America, the “Land of the Free” where some people are more free than others, based on their race and ethnicity and religion.

First is the use of the term “white man.” Many Americans think the use of that phrase is racist in and of itself. But they have no second thoughts about throwing around the terms “Arab” or “Muslim” in the same context.

Second, had either of the suspects in the attacks been Arab or Muslim, the incidents would immediately have been defined as “terrorist” attacks because the killers were either Arab or Muslim. There is a stereotype that comes from the racist practice of “profiling” that leads people to believe that the only killers who are terrorists are Arabs and Muslims.

But when the killers turnout to be white men, they are shrugged off as tragic, distressed, crazed, insane lone gunmen who committed violent acts.

Americans hold Arabs and Muslims responsible for every Arab or Muslim who commits an act of violence, but quickly separate and excuse any white person who does the same or worse.

Why is stereotyping acceptable when the suspects are Arab or Muslim, but not acceptable when the killers are white Americans?

That’s a question racists don’t like to address. It’s not all Americans, of course, who are like this. But it is a problem with far too many of them. And when the good Americans remain silent, then they become unwitting accomplices to hatred, even if they dislike it.

– Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist. He can be reached at http://www.TheMediaOasis.com or follow him on Twitter @RayHanania