Mairon Brandwajn

Ellen Litman

RHT- 1300

28 November 2005

Correlating The Plot Against America and “Pluralism and the War on Terror”

Though it is possible to witness racial profiling after November the 11th against

the Muslims or anyone that looks like one, America has learned from its history of

oppressing single groups and does not directly attack the Muslims as it attacked other

groups in the earlier 20th century.

As expressed in Gary Gerstle’s “Pluralism and the War on Terror,” “…

multiculturalism in America has thus far proved sturdy, its future is not yet assured” (10).

This multiculturalism and pluralism has been established, decimated, and re-established

during America’s unstable, war-driven 20th century history. When pluralism flourished

during peacetime in the pre-World War I and pre-World War II decades, it became

unacceptable and German and Japanese Americans endured extreme discrimination.

Many feared that after the fall of the World Trade Center, America could go as far as it

did in the world wars in discriminating and punishing the Arabs and Muslims for their

cultural association with the terrorists; there have been many changes in the post-

liberation era of the 1960s and 1970s, however, which make this possible hatred and

discrimination a hard alternative.

One reason as Gerstle states is that “anti-Japanese prejudice in American society

prior to World War II was far more extreme than what Muslim and Arab Americans

experienced prior to September 11” (2). From the first Japanese immigration waves in the
late 19th century, the United States had set laws prohibiting citizenship and owning land

to the Japanese. These precedents don’t eliminate the possibility for another interment

camp to happen, yet mistakes of this magnitude are hard to repeat, especially when they

were made by a whole nation. Another reason that prevents the American public of

committing such heinous hate crimes is advancement in social diversity and

multiculturalism. Thanks to similar actions taken by politicians such as George Bush’s

propaganda, whether for political reasons or not, which calls the nation to accept and

embrace the need for acceptance of the Muslim, Islamic, and Sikh people, there has been

a wide interest in learning and recognizing the Arab based culture. These acts have even

behooved the relationship between the American government and the Muslim Americans

as a report made by the Council on American Islamic Relations showed an increase in

“’acts of kindness by [non-Muslim] friends or colleagues’” to their Muslim neighbors (4).

Lamentably, American society is far from perfect, and there is still some felt

racism. There is some equivalent discrimination in post September 11 against the Arabs

of that felt by the Germans, the Japanese, the Jews, and the Eastern Europeans during the

world war decades. It includes the arrest of hundreds of Muslims immediately after the

fall of the towers; the constant surveillance and interrogation of Middle Eastern students

and families by the INS; the creation of a higher fence for controlling the number of

immigrants; and most importantly, the effects that the three above have when combined:

The fear of living among a patriot, white America, hiding religious and cultural

background for the safety of themselves and their families.

It is also a tough situation for the government because it faces a battle between

proliferating diversification and providing safety measures for the people. Also, the
Republican ideology of unilateralism, which believes that America should reign the

world, should not be juxtaposed to the new accepted ideas of diversification. Gerstle

bombastically describes it as “an unstable mix” (9). The administration wouldn’t want to

look weak by portraying and embracing two almost opposite ideals.

The United States government, whether at a time of war or peace, is solely

responsible for the decisions it makes. Fifty years ago, it decided to go to war after

attacked in its own soil in Pearl Harbor. Today, it is still fighting the war on terror after

the attack in its own soil in New York City. Without considering the fact that technology

has exponentially increased in the last fifty years and that the work and effort required

battling World War II was not of the same magnitude as September 11, a war amongst

countries and a war between a country and a terrorist group are totally different.

However, when specific, ethnic groups are attacked during wars, there can be similarities

among their suffering. Like the Arabs, Muslims, and Sikhs during the September 11

aftermath, Jews in Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America feel an extreme fear of living

in the United States.

With an imaginative detour in history, Roth inscribes that Charles Lindbergh, the

famous American isolationist pilot, wins by a landslide when he runs against Franklin

Delano Roosevelt in his third election. To get to power, just like the Nazis did in

Germany, Lindbergh ostracizes the Jews and uses them when he speaks to the public, “A

few far sighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the

majority still do not… We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be

their own interests, but we must also look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural

passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction” (13). This
event shows the difference between Lindbergh and Bush. While Lindbergh’s power

increases with racism, Bush’s power increased from accepting multiculturalism after

September 11. Though Roth’s novel is fiction, it does accurately portray the easily

influenced mindset of Americans in the 1940’s; therefore, comparing the mindset of both

eras, American’s social awareness has progressed for the better.

Lindbergh’s Republican government terrifies and terrorizes the Jews of America

in the 1940’s with its policies and close alliance with the Third German Reich. To

preserve the nation, we must resist the propaganda of "the Jewish race," Lindbergh

warns, "and their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our

radio, and our government" (14). This terrible attack by the Republicans to the Jews can’t

be compared to any public influence made against the Arabs. However, many strict

Republican followers issued some form of propaganda, such as the fifty-two faces of the

most dangerous terrorist in a card set, which affected the Arab-Americans as a whole.

Though critics may argue that the cards and the posters were done solely for monetary

compensation, they still propagated racism against the Arabs.

One obvious attack felt by both races is the nonchalant activity of the police force.

When evicted from the hotel, Philip Roth doesn’t inscribe proof of racism but speculates

that the Roth’s were kicked out for being Jewish when the policeman says, “But that

doesn’t mean that all hotel reservations are created equal” (70). Because there is no proof

of racism, the reader can assume that Mr. Roth is having a paranoia attack when he

accuses the hotel manager and the policeman of racism. Whether the Roths were evicted

from the hotel for being Jewish or evicted by a pure mistake in the reservation, this event
exemplifies how the Arabs were treated sometimes in similar instances by the American

public and law and how the palpable tension in the air augmented justifiable paranoia.

Another form of racism came from the ignorant populous of the nation. When Mr.

Roth gave Mr. Taylor his monologue about Winchell while eating in the restaurant with

the whole family, a stranger interrupted the argument and said, “If ever there was a case

of a loudmouth Jew with too much power” (78). Like the Roths, Arab Americans have

felt strong waves of racism in the streets, especially when they wear turbans or any other

religious garments. In New York City there have been reported cases of clients not

wanting to get in cabs with drivers that look Arab or Middle Eastern. Whenever an Arab

walks through an airport, wondering eyes stare at him and his family suspecting the

worse. There is hope that this racism can be abolished with the help from the forces that

fight it; in Roth’s book, the owner of the restaurant solved the argument between Mr.

Roth and the stranger and offered more ice cream and desserts to the Roth boys. This

type of gratitude is seen towards the Arabs too as Gerstle writes “A New California

Media Poll reported by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California found,

meanwhile that ‘overwhelming majorities of people of Middle Eastern and South Asian

descent living in California say they feel their families belong and are welcome’ in

America” (4-5).