Week_5_Centric_Views

Week 5 Assignment US Centric Views Comparison Alyson Krupica ETH/125 November 13, 2011 Professor Brown Week 6 Assignment US Centric Views Comparison This week’s assignment consisted of the two appendixes completed by myself, listed under Alyson, and my husband, listed under Mickey. We were to complete these according to what we thought the common United States centric viewpoints on Muslim and Arab American and Christian American groups. There are some similarities in both of the appendixes. Under Christian Americans: governed by Biblical law, not oppressive to women, women who go to work, immodest dress, well educated, political environment open to both sexes, conservative political values. Muslim and Arab Americans had these similarities: governed by the Qur’an, male dominated political environment, religion part of government, secular content in education, oppressive to women, women as homemakers, modest dress, fanatically religious, patriarchal society, secular content in education, religious values perpetuated in politics, male dominated political environment. There are some similarities. It just came across to me that in the appendix that my husband completed, more of the descriptors that were in the Muslim and Arab American category had negative connotations to them. After comparing both of the appendixes, the only one descriptor that is the same is family oriented for the both groups column. I would believe that even the person with the most prejudice towards Muslim and Arab Americans would have to agree that family oriented is true but this did surprise me. Governed by Biblical law is absolutely true for Christian Americans as well as law abiding and devout. I think that governed by the Qur’an is true for the Muslim Americans and Muslim Arab Americans. Patriarchal society would also apply as well. Although it may be true in Muslim and Arab countries, religion is not part of government in America so that cannot be true for Muslim and Arab Americans or Christian Americans. For the same reason, religious values cannot be perpetuated in politics here for Muslim, Arab or Christian Americans. I think that the average American’s perception of each group is a sum of news media information, information that their families and friends tell them and what they see in movies. Of course the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were a great tragedy but that along with Orientalism has given many Americans a distorted picture of Muslim and Arab Americans. I think that is why that both of our appendixes had some different results.