DeVany is a 1997 alumnus from the UCLA department of
medicine.
By Mark DeVany
After reading Gustavo Arellano’s article on Howard Stern
(“Stern embodies emerging U.S. values”) in the Nov. 28
issue of the Daily Bruin, I felt a need to write to you and express
my discontent. I was personally disgusted with Arellano’s
broad generalizations and juvenile accusations about the values of
an American.
First of all, isn’t Arellano an American himself and
therefore appalled, by nature, with any American who commits such
an ignorant act as abusing or attacking an Arab just for being
Arab? Many Americans are saddened by acts of stupidity like these.
Arellano should know this and make an account of it in his
writings.
If Arellano is not an American, he is still living in this
country and enjoying an education at one of the United
States’ top universities. Therefore he should know better
than to just present these generalizations and think that the
opinion of one American, be it a celebrity or not, can account for
the majority of an entire population’s views.
To broadly state that “Americans simply have not bothered
to distinguish or appreciate cultural and ethnic nuances” is
just not true. I will use an example in the entertainment industry
to prove my point and stay along the lines of Arellano’s
subject matter.
NBC’s “The West Wing” put out a show shortly
after the Sept. 11 attacks and part of the plot line dealt directly
with this problem of lumping all Arabs into one group of
terrorists. They used a diagram to do a common SAT exercise to show
the distinction that Arellano is speaking of, loosely: Islam
““ is to ““ Islamic terrorists as Christianity ““ is
to ““ what?
The answer they used was the Ku Klux Klan. This example
illustrates that all Christians are not members of the KKK who
often use Christian beliefs to fuel their racist attitudes. In the
same light all followers of Islam are not terrorists. I would hope
that any American who saw this episode immediately became
enlightened and could see that all Arabs are not terrorists.
Tragically, there is no way this could be possible. Even with a
valuable example like this one, some Americans would still be too
ignorant to grasp the meaning of it. This is just a fact of life,
for Earth, not just America. Ignorant people live in every country
and we as citizens of Earth are irritated everyday by these people
and the acts that they commit. In Arellano’s case, he seems
to be a little ignorant too. Making obvious and idiotic
generalizations about a society that he belongs to just seems
irrelevant to me. If he would have written his piece in a way that
didn’t encompass all Americans I would not have been as
offended.
Also as an avid listener of Howard Stern, I applaud him for his
outwardly shocking entertainment. He makes me laugh, he makes me
disgusted, but I have the knowledge to look at him as an
entertainer and not an icon for my personal beliefs and values. In
fact, I think that half the time Howard Stern doesn’t believe
the stuff he is ranting about either. People that may follow Howard
Stern’s (or others like him) iconoclastic outbursts as gospel
are just sadly uninformed and I am empathetic towards them. This
means they were not raised with their own beliefs and values by a
loving care-giver.
As for the “war on terrorism,” how can you not
support the actions of your country trying to right such
unforgivable wrongs? Even though I am furious about this specific
situation with the Taliban, which was produced by our own
government and armed forces in the early 1980s, it is still a war.
A war has many casualties, military as well as civilian. People are
always going to protest war and say that innocent people are going
to get hurt, but is it the American people’s fault that the
U.S. is a superpower? Is it the American’s fault that there
will most likely never be airstrikes, a ground war, or anything of
that nature on U.S. soil in our lifetimes? It may be, but I
digress.
America is the strongest country in the world and we have a
responsibility to uphold that position. I do believe that we live
in the best country on this earth and I, as an American, will do
anything to keep the American spirit alive for all who believe in
it. Imagine if there was another world war and it was necessary to
reinstate the draft. How would we all feel then? Luckily, for most
Americans, we will not have to endure a war on the frontlines or
maybe even another attack like that of Sept. 11. For that matter I
am truly grateful and I will continue to count my blessings.
Arellano: I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are
educated enough to know that all (not even a majority) of Americans
are not “culturally ignorant” and therefore should have
been duly noted in the article. Also, to think that a media figure
with his sophomoric antics and ill-advised lowbrow humor is
subsequently changing the scope of America’s moral landscape
is simply lowbrow in itself. I hope next time you can find
something more positive to write about or at least write something
using a little more intellect.