Essay Critique "Stereotyping of Arabs in the U.S." by Matt Duncan

I felt that this particular was contrite and to the point, although I had to look up a couple of the words that Said uses; overall it was a decent read. I agree with Said when he says that Americans look upon all Arabs as "terrorists" and that Arab-Americans have become one of, if not the most stereotyped group of people in America. Infact, one of my roommates has this happen to him all the time. He was born in Buffalo, NY but because his dad's family is from Yemen (a country located south of Saudi Arabia) and he looks "peculiarly similar to the infidels" he is looked down upon because his skin looks different.

I sympathize with the author when he says that some Arabs have lost their identities because they have been lumped together, and that the U.S. government has lost some control of its motives when invading the Middle East to help Israel. Now every country is being considered a "threat" to produce W.M.D.'s and the countries that are not considered hostile are still enduring American respresentation because of the oil that these countries hold. I find it a little sad that we can't bring our soldiers home and spend some of the money invested in keeping soldiers in these countries and put the money towards advancement of cleaner, more eco-friendly kinds of fuel so that we wouldn't need to prolong our stay in these foreign countries for oil. All in all I thought it was a decent read from Mr. Edward Said, and I agree that Arabs are being discriminated in the U.S.