Reaction Paper
In her article, author Nada Elia describes what she refers to as the privileging of Arab-American women, at the same time that their male relatives are being subjected to an increasingly hostile environment. She criticizes the governments of both the United States and Israel as oppressors of Arabs and Arab-Americans. She discusses the fact Arab-American women are not seen as the same type of threat as Arab-American males, but as victims of their religion. She blames American culture at large, but also Western feminism, which she feels is very exploitative of non-mainstream American culture. She believes that the "othering" of Arab-Americans has occurred since the beginning of the country. She attributes some of this to the unsuccessful claims of separation of church and state, the fact that Christianity (especially Christian fundamentalism) has had a major impact on American political thought, and what she considers America's Zionist worldview. She believes that American's have traditionally shown the least tolerance in the areas of religion. She believes that Americans view the clash between Christianity and Islam is the most significant clash in modern society. She believes that Arabs are overtly discriminated against be
Elia seems plagued by that problem, because she denounces the mainstream American media for not giving accurate information about Arabs and Arab-Americans, but then does not reveal any information that has not been made available through the mainstream American media, which she lambastes. In fact, she posits that Arab women are actively victimized by both America and Israel. However, I was not persuaded by Elia's article, because she engaged in the same type of faulty thinking that she criticizes mainstream Americans and Western feminists for engaging in. Furthermore, Elia has no problem denouncing fundamentalist Christianity as oppressive to women, but believes it is a form of racism and religious discrimination for people to consider Islam to be oppressive to women. In fact, looking through her article, one finds very few facts, but a significant amount of opinion. Finally, she concludes that the Arab regimes that are the most oppressive of women, such as in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, would not stay in power without American assistance. cause they are not present in political discourse, recognized as a minority group, or represented in American popular culture. To fail to acknowledge that the Jewish claim to that land is as old as the Muslim claim to the land, and may be valid, undermines Elia's argument. I cannot even say that I learned that some Arab-American women feel the same was as Elia, because I have previously discussed these issues with women who share her point-of-view. It would have been more convincing to view Israelis as oppressors if their claims to the area were acknowledged and the modern history of the Israeli-Palestine conflict explained. For example, she characterized the Israelis in Palestine as occupiers. The fact is that Muslims, Jews, and Christians have been engaged in an almost unceasing debate over proper ownership of that region of the world. On the contrary, these are facts are things that I have previously learned from the mainstream American media. Feelings Quite frankly, I was very disturbed and even angered by Elia's article.
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Acceptance Essays
