TV show supports stereotypes of Arab Americans

The Buck Stops Here by Nathan Hathaway

The Department of Homeland Security’s threat advisory currently sits at “elevated,” yellow on the five-tier security scale.

But anyone who looks at the popular media would think we’re at “severe,” all the way up at the top of the scale.

In this day and age, Hollywood loves to paint our national security picture as extremely bleak.

Take, for example, the new season of Fox’s hit television show “24.” In the opening episodes, a story line has been set up in which Turkish terrorists have abducted the secretary of defense and plan to try him for “war crimes against humanity” and execute him.

The program shows a well-orchestrated plan by these Turkish nationals to transport a briefcase with some sort of device inside to a secret compound in the canyons of Southern California. They have also launched an all-out attack to corrupt the Internet.

Along the way, of course, these terrorists don’t think twice about killing anyone in their path as soon as they have whatever information they need.

What these shows accomplish is only to contribute to the irrational fear propagated in America that anyone of Middle Eastern descent is simply here to systematically destroy the United States from within.

But anyone with a functioning brain can see that not everybody from the Middle East hates the U.S. and would prefer to see all Americans dead.

Not everyone from the Middle East is an extremist or a terrorist. Most, actually, find such behavior reprehensible.

Thankfully, America is waking up to this reality. The initial fear in the wake of Sept. 11 is subsiding and people are embracing the majority of Middle Eastern nationals here in the U.S. as true Americans.

Now if only the mainstream popular media would embrace the same principles and reflect the attitudes held by the majority of Americans.