The most exhilarating idea emerging from the ongoing and fiercely competitive US primary election has been the likelihood of the Democratic party's frontrunners - Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - to run jointly as members of a "dream ticket" in the upcoming national elections, regardless of who will be president or vice president.
The point to emphasise here is that the pair, each very popular but within a different segment of the population, will mark the first opportunity for a white woman and a black man to run for the country's two top positions, something unheard of previously because of the ubiquitous racism and sexism in the United States.
Whether this will be the case will depend on many significant factors, not least of all the ongoing racist slurs that are hurled at Obama, the tenderfoot senator from Illinois whose late father was a Kenyan Muslim, who died in an automobile accident, and whose mother is a white American who passed away after suffering from ovarian cancer.
Suspected
Despite his assertion that he is a practicing Christian, he is often suspected by various groups here in the US and overseas of being a a Muslim like his father. They point to his middle name - Hussain.
A prominent Israeli paper, Ma'ariv, carried a disgusting cartoon showing Obama painting the White House black. Some Israelis and a large section of the American Jewish community are uncomfortable about the likelihood of the junior senator from Illinois becoming the next president.
Sadly, racism and sexism are still prevalent features in American society.
I recall when I came with my mother to the United States to attend my brother's wedding in St Louis, Montana, the immigration officer in New York corrected my colour on the immigration form to read "olive" rather than "white," which at the time I disregarded, blaming my sun tan acquired on Beirut's glorious beaches.
Jack Shaheen, a Lebanese-American professor emeritus of mass communication at Southern Illinois University, has just published a new book titled, Guilty: Hollywood's Verdict on Arabs after 9/11 in which he once again lambasts the American movie industry for continuously smearing Arabs and Muslims.
The prominent media critic, described as a "one-man anti-defamation league", is the author of an earlier pace-setting tome, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, in which he documents and castigates Hollywood's negative stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims.
"As long as no one contests our nation's Islamophobia and Arabophobia." Dr Shaheen told me, "the myth, Arab-Muslim-Terrorist, will continue to poison our hearts and minds."
He added: "Obamaphobia will cease only when courageous movers and shakers begin saying, repeatedly, and include clear, voices: 'There's nothing wrong and everything right about having an American Muslim seeking the presidency of the United States.
''Vote for Osama Hussain Arafat!' When this happens, we Americans will really have come a long way, baby."
In his new and inspiring book, Dr Shaheen observes that Arabs remain "the most maligned group" in the history of Hollywood. "Malevolent stereotypes equalling Islam and Arabs with violence have endured for more than a century. Sweeping mis-characterisations and omissions continue to impact us all."
His bottom line, which Arab-Americans and the Arab world should recognise, is that "the historical and ongoing connection between fiction film, public opinion and public policies is real".
Despite his shocking revelation that the majority of post 9/11 film continue, as they did in the past, to "vilify" the Arab people, he said he was "somewhat encouraged" that he has seen displayed "at times" on the silver screens "more complex, evenhanded Arab portraits than I have seen in the past".
He singled out Babel, Syriana and Yes. (I would add Rendition which I saw last weekend).
Besides Hollywood, Dr Shaheen equally castigates television producers. Although the majority of the three million Arab Americans are Christians (and "four of five were born in the US") "TV programmes present us as evil Muslims and link the Islamic faith, a religion of peace, with violence".
Wisdom
Some recent TV producers, however, have eliminated these "devastating" stereotypes. And here, Dr Shaheen notes that these positive steps "reflect the wisdom of Senator Hillary Clinton who, early on, stressed the importance of making Arab-American contributions visible".
He recalled her remarks at a 1986 White House prayer breakfast where she said: "The vast majority of Arabs and Muslims in the United States are loyal citizens. [Their] daily lives revolve around work, family and community ... It's not fair to apply a negative stereotype to all [Arabs and] Muslims."
One way to do that, Dr Shaheen proposes the holding of a major US-Arab Entertainment Summit designed "to recognise, contest, and correct images" so as to erase these negative portrayals and humanise Arabs, as has been the case with the Germans and Russians in yesteryears.
For his part, Dr Shaheen singlehandedly took the admirable step of starting a scholarship programme for Arab-American students "to major and excel in media studies" - a step that ought to be duplicated here and in the Arab world.
