Racial-profiling debates erase Arab American self-representation and voice.

Evidence

What the episode ultimately represents is less the “plight” of the Arab/Muslim American since 9/11 and more the national debate on racial profiling and the national anxiety about flying with Arabs and Muslims. Throughout the episode, the Arab American man remains silent and unable to represent himself to the audience while his lawyer, a white man, speaks for him. Thus he remains a foreigner in the minds of American viewers. Furthermore, what America is “supposed to be” is debated in relation to Arab and Muslim Americans. Dole’s closing remarks make a larger statement about how America has changed. She suggests that the country should no longer be open to immigrants because “they” ruin it by making “us” unsafe. Through arguing for security, not only is racial profiling justified, but so are closed borders and new INS measures to detain and deport Arabs and Muslims. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 388

Categorization

• XREF: Silencing/voyeurism theme connects to classic postcolonial critiques (Said’s Orientalism) and the soundscape book’s point about who gets to speak.