In high school, one of my favorite classes was U.S. history, which was taught by a fiery Southern woman who previously raced Porsches. Aside from her occasional good-natured attacks on the blasted Yankees, some of the memories that are most clear in my brain are of the political cartoons that were used as illustrations in our textbook.
Nowadays, awful caricatures of Asian Americans stealing jobs and money make me wonder how people could look at such images and not throw away the paper in indignation.
I thought that, surely, we as a nation had progressed far beyond such ignorant slander.
In the past few weeks, I've realized that such hope was, of course, naïveté. Comics on editorial pages across the country have featured shifty looking men with beards, wearing turbans, grinning greedily and generally being up to no good. The comics have been in response to the potential sale of some port contracts to a company from Dubai.
Political cartoonists across the nation have inadvertently expressed a fundamental problem in the approach both sides have taken towards the controversy. Their attitude is best reflected in the attitudes of the Democrats (and a few Republicans) who have come out swinging against the proposal.
The most vocal opponents of the sale seem to be intent on proving exactly how little they know about the political situation in the Middle East. They seem to assume that a country in which people practice Islam is automatically associated with terrorists. They also seem to be unable to dissociate the emirate of Dubai from the United Arab Emirates as a whole.
Critics cite the UAE as one of three countries to offer acknowledgement of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan (a regime which we had no small role in supporting initially, ironically). What they miss is Dubai's support of the war, both financial and tactical.
This is not to say that the deal shouldn't raise any concerns. President Bush has certainly done an awful job in seeing it through; after declaring war in Iraq, a country which had less direct al-Qaida ties than some banks in Dubai, he has done little to differentiate between which countries can be trusted and which cannot.
Bush has also done little to see to it that a thorough, transparent investigation has taken place. In light of the environment of fear he has created with regards to our borders, he of all people should realize that the citizens of the United States need assurances that we are being protected.
More importantly, the port deal could potentially draw attention to a much bigger problem. Many critics attack it on the grounds that any American port run by a foreign power is a security risk.
This concern seems legitimate. However, these legislators have missed the boat – three-quarters of the cargo that comes into our ports goes through terminals leased to foreign countries. And, of course, the ports that DP World, the company from Dubai, would gain access to are already owned by a British company.
The deal provides plenty of opportunity for progress as a nation. By growing more business connections to the Middle East, we stand to be able to improve our relations with the region. By recognizing the vulnerability our ports have had for a very long time, we may be able to form new legislation to protect our harbors.
Perpetuating stereotypes and pretending that port security is a new problem will gain us absolutely nothing.
Still, we get racist cartoons and the presentation of bickering politicians in the media. Hopefully, level heads will prevail. And hopefully it won't take us generations to realize that our cartoons are in poor taste.
Ben is a journalism junior. Reach him at benjamin.horowitz@asu.edu.
