A Clear Voice: Those Poor Misunderstood Accountants

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March 16, 2005

Those Poor Misunderstood Accountants

An article on Fox News today discusses the reaction of Ahmed Younis, national director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, to the television series “24.”

Younis said the show does present problems for Muslims, especially those living in the United States.
"We are simply worried about what this means to the American social fabric," he said. "We as a nation have not shown historically in modern history that we are able to deal with situations in which there is an enemy that has representation in some form or another within our country.

He continued, "We believe that at its most extreme, this is no different than signs in the South that say 'no niggers,' 'no Jews,' 'no dogs.' This is no different than during World War II, cartoons that depicted Japanese-Americans as having buck teeth and big glasses."

Um, yes, it is different.

If you’re not familiar with the show, (I just started watching it myself last week and it is, indeed, very compelling) the current plotline involves a Turkish family living in the US that carries out a terrorist act.

This reminds me of a SNL skit, “Anti-Arab,” that aired in 1993. In it John Goodman keeps bursting into the same Arab owned store every time the US is having some conflict with [insert Middle Eastern country name here] and shouts, “You dirty [insert Middle Eastern country name here]-ian, I’m going to bust up your store.” The shop owner protests, “But I’m not from [insert Middle Eastern country name here].” John Goodman says, “Oh, sorry,” and leaves, until the last time when we find that the US is actually having a conflict with the country the shop owner is from.

The implication is that Americans are simply too stupid to realize that Arabs are all from different countries and all have different political views, and even the ones who share countries and political views with terrorists aren’t going to blow us all up. However Younis, unlike SNL, isn’t very funny.

Obviously there are racist people out there who are too stupid to realize all that, or just don’t care. Somehow, though, I really don’t think their minds are going to be changed by an episode of “24.”

An article on the group’s website reveals that they had a meeting with Fox officials in January to discuss their complaints. Fox agreed to air a public service announcement, the text of which follows:

I'm Kiefer Sutherland. I play counter-terrorist Jack Bauer on Fox's 24. While terrorism is obviously one of the most critical challenges facing our nation and the world, it's important to recognize that the American Muslim community stands firmly beside their fellow Americans in denouncing and resisting terrorism in every form.

The problem with this, however, is that while some members of the American Muslim community denounce and resist terrorism, it’s certainly not clear that they all do. In fact, it seems as though there are plenty of American Muslims who don’t denounce or resist terrorism in any form and actually encourage it. See this for example. And goodness knows in the worldwide Muslim community there are many people who are all for terrorism. Remember those people dancing in the streets on 9-11?

The only time I ever hear about Muslims denouncing terrorism is while they are also complaining about their treatment in the media or claiming that hate crimes against them are running rampant. (There may very well be hate crimes against Arabs going on, but I’ve never actually seen any figures to suggest this is a widespread problem.)
Of course the public service announcement was not enough. MPAC says:
While it sends the message that the American Muslim population is an equal partner in fighting terrorism and protecting our country, a PSA with that message is far less powerful than a story line that underscores that reality.

The problem with news and entertainment is that it never accurately represents reality because that’s not what people are interested in hearing about. They already experience reality every day; they want something more interesting. That’s why during prime time TV you see, say, ten murders and zero people burping the baby, even though millions more incidents of baby-burping occur in a day than murders.

What’s next, Irish American communities complaining because the news about and depictions of Irish people tend to emphasize the IRA more than the regular people out there feeding their cows? Are accountants going to complain that their portrayal in entertainment and news focuses too much on embezzling, and not on some guy adding up numbers and reading tax law?

Posted by illuminaria at March 16, 2005 02:25 PM

Comments

"The only time I ever hear about Muslims denouncing terrorism is while they are also complaining about their treatment in the media"

Thankfully, that's beginning to change, a little. In response to the terrorist bombings in Spain, Imams in Spain, Morocco, Algeria, and Libya joined together last week in declaring a fatwa against Osama Bin Laden. Now all we need is for some Imam to nail a list of 95 problems with Islam to the door of a mosque.

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