The terms Muslims and Arabs are two unique demographic identifiers. A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is the Islamic faith, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion that is based on the Qur’an. There are many Muslims who are not Arabs – there are Muslim Indonesians, Muslim Chinese, and Muslim Americans.
Arabs are an ethnic group of people who speak the Arabic language, and follow different religions. Many are Muslims, but some are Christians. Arab people are also known as Arabs and primarily live in the Arab World, which is located in Western Asia or North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra- tribal relationships playing an important part of Arab identity.
In terms of changes to United States policy, The Civil Rights Division holds a bimonthly interagency meeting that brings together top officials from federal agencies and leaders of the Muslim, Arab, Sikh and South Asian communities to address civil rights issues. There have also been some signs of reverse in the backlash that Muslims and Arabs have endured after the occurrences of 9/11. The Department of Justice seems to be making changes that will protect the innocent Muslims and Arabs so to give them the same Civil Rights as others. Although these rights are already in existence they really need to be reinforced. They were made to give Blacks the same rights as Whites and now these same rights need to be acknowledged for the Muslims and Arabs. The Justice Department has recently announced changes to their investigation policies for FBI agents which would allow questioning based on ethnicity rather than probable cause, and allow for general, open-ended questions rather than the current policy of pursuing one predetermined line of questioning (http://www.opednews.com/articles/American-Muslims-alarmed-a-by-Abdus-Sattar-Ghaza-080703-362.html).
Two characteristics of Orientalism would be Sprituality and Diversity. This is also another way of creating stereotypes against people that are different. Hate crimes tend to come from such ignorance of stereotyping people because they are of a different culture or race. The perfect example of this would be the events of 9/11. The reason this is the best example is because Arabs or anyone who looks like them may be targeted because the way they look is associated with those events.
In my opinion the best way to express tolerance is to model it in front of others, by directly striking up friendships with a diverse group of people. One thing that the United States government should think about is using the media more to promote the elements of diverse cultures this will give audiences a chance to have positive interactions in a relaxed environment. They should also think about adding something into schools to provide an accurate and positive portrayal of different groups can also reduce prejudice.
