Race and Ethnicity in Entertainment

During fall break, I returned to my high school and sat in on one of my favorite classes. I was listening to what the now-juniors were saying about one of the most controversial books, Huckleberry Finn. They had just met Jim, the stereotype slave who tags along with Huck on his crazy adventures. What interested me most was that they weren't standing up, shouting, "This is an outrage! No person is like this! This is so racist!" They were just sitting there, nodding their heads silently, accepting what Twain had prescribed to Jim's character so many years ago. When I talked to the teacher after the class had left, she told me that her classes were becoming more and more complacent when confronted with the issue of Jim's character. She said that they had just become desensitized to any racial issues because they were surrounded by it all the time in forms of entertainment. 

I think that's what made this topic of how Arabs were portrayed in entertainment so important to me. As a humanist, I am very sensitive to racial slurs and stereotyping. However, it seems that my generation has become almost numb to these things. No one thinks twice about the evil sultans in movies or the "CBD" (cool black dude) in comedies. Why is this? Why don't we notice these things on first seeing them? Only after watching that video, and seeing all of the Arab characters grouped together, did I realize just what role the Arabs had played in the entertainment world. However, I have to wonder, is this changing? Are minorities and "foreign" ethnicities gaining more and more prominence in American culture? I truly hope so.