By: Mohamed Sidki
It is no secret that Western media has refused to present Muslims, and Brown-skinned Peoples in general, as anything but terrorists (“Back to the Future,” “24,” “Homeland”) or your average, generic evil henchmen (the first THREE “Indiana Jones” movies). Growing up as an Arab Muslim in America in the 1980s and 1990s, there were hardly any characters who looked like me in the movies or on T.V. that anyone could’ve consider a positive role model, so I ended up looking forward to whenever Brown-centric movies l
There has been some progress over the last couple of years but, it’s been excruciatingly slow. And unfortunately, that progress is still beholden to “The White Gaze,” so we end up with projects by writer-performers such as Aziz Ansari and Kumail Nanjiani who center their material around mocking Muslim women for being, in their eyes, “backwards” and “unassimulated,” while they themselves lust after white women. Media gate keeping has prevented a diverse array of Brown Peoples and Muslims from presenting all