Respected journalism published racist claims about Arabic and Islamic thought

Evidence

Not only did Lewis single out Islam in the Middle East (the upsurge in Judaism and Egyptian or Lebanese Christianity, for instance, was scarcely mentioned), but she went on to make statements, particularly in her third article, about the Arabic language (quoting expert opinion that its poetry is “rhetorical and declamatory, not intimate and personal”) and the Islamic mind (an inability to employ “step-by-step thinking”) that would be considered either racist or nonsensical if used to describe any other language, religion, or ethnic grouping. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 243

Categorization

• XREF: Schemas of ‘the Arab mind’ and ‘the Islamic mind’ recur endlessly — connects to Said’s Orientalism and to modern coverage of Arab populations generally. — connects to: National Geographic travel journalism was the leading channel imparting anti-Arab racism — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 216

Related

• National Geographic travel journalism was the leading channel imparting anti-Arab racism (similarity 0.86)
• Even anti-imperialist American travelers voiced racial contempt for Arabs (similarity 0.83)
• Islamic studies’ marginality lets media spread racist caricatures unchecked (similarity 0.81)
• Medieval anti-Islamic polemic survives unchanged in contemporary writing about Arabs (similarity 0.80)
• Racialized ‘national mind’ discourse survives only for Islam and Arabs (similarity 0.79)
• Even well-informed travel sustained unmodified prejudice against Islam (similarity 0.78)