New U.S. TV messages target Arab-Muslim stereotyping
Regional-USA, Politics, 12/21/2001

Two members of US president George W. Bush's administration on Thursday were present to launch two new television public service announcements that discourage ethnic stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims.

The brief film spots will run in more than 71 million American households under a joint effort involving six major cable operators, the national cable and telecommunications association and the direct broadcast satellite TV industry. U.S. Energy secretary Spencer Abraham, a Lebanese-American, said that Bush is "deeply committed to ensuring that we do not single out patriotic Americans, who just happen to be Muslim or of Arab descent, during these difficult times. And that is where this campaign comes in and why it is so important."

"Tolerance and acceptance of Muslim and Arab-Americans isn't just our duty in these times, it is a hallmark of American freedom," Abraham said.

Transportation secretary Norman Mineta, a Japanese-American, said the US administration wants to ensure that "the Arab-American and Muslim-American community are treated with the same dignity, with the same respect, afforded every citizen of the United States of America."

"The president has made it clear that our enemies do not include the millions of Arab-Americans and Muslims who call this country home, nor the hundreds of millions of true followers of the Islamic faith around the world," Mineta said.

"Our national conscience will not tolerate racial and religious scapegoating," Mineta said. "Surrendering to actions of hate and discrimination makes us no different than the despicable terrorists who rained such hatred upon our people."

"Lashing out against our fellow Americans just because they might look like the evil doers violates the very freedom that we so cherish," said John Sie, chairman and chief executive officer of Starz Encore Group, which produced the TV spots that specifically focus on Arab-Americans and Muslims.

The spots began running last Sunday in the heaviest rotation ever on all Starz's 13 movie channels, between every movie, said Sie who had immigrated to the United States from China in 1949, he said.

"With more than 500 movies a month, that is a lot of reach and frequency," He said.

The Starz spot -- over images of the September 11 world Trade Center attack, followed by faces of Arab-Americans and Muslims -- says, "our nation has suffered a horrific tragedy perpetuated by a band of evil people."

"Many law-abiding, peaceful Arab and Muslim Americans resemble them in appearance. If we vent our anger toward them just because of how they look, we are actually attacking individual freedom, a founding principle of this great nation."

"We must avoid ethnic stereotyping, as we stand behind our president to preserve our cherished freedoms," the ad voice-over says.

The second TV spot carries this message: "in a war on terror, some say we cannot see who our enemies are. But there is one enemy we can see very clearly. It is a defaced neighborhood mosque; an Arab-American storekeeper in fear of reprisal; a Moslem child blamed because she is different."

"Hate is our enemy. And when we start to hate other Americans, we have lost everything. Hate has taken enough from us already. Don't let it take you," the ad warns.

Also helping launch the TV spots were Jack Valenti, president and chief executive officer of the motion pictures association of America; James Zogby, president of the Arab American institute; Peggy Binzel, executive vice-president of the national cable and telecommunications association; and Jennifer Chagin, Brokaw agency director of marketing services.

Valenti said a new trailer targeting Arab-American and Muslim discrimination will be aired at movie theaters around the united states, and will be shown in many different languages for movie theaters around the world.

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