When I spotted the title, “‘American Sniper’ promotes racism,” it immediately caught my interest. But it soon became apparent that the authors of this article have fallen prey to a disconcertingly common trap—not knowing what “race” really is. Race, ethnicity, and nationality are related but by no means synonymous terms. The key difference between the two most commonly confused—race and ethnicity—is that race is biological and ethnicity is cultural. Anthropology and human geography experts agree that the three races that make up the all-encompassing human race are as follows: Mongoloid, Caucasian, and Negro. Caucasian is a race. Arab is an ethnicity. Afghan is a nationality. Islam is a religion.
It is important to remember that Islam is a religion that any person can follow, regardless of race, ethnicity, or nationality. But because of Islam’s dominance in the Middle East, the rest of the world tends to forget that being Middle Eastern does not mean that you have to be Muslim, and being Muslim does not mean that you have to be of Middle Eastern descent. This is where the problem with the sensationalized title “‘American Sniper’ promotes racism” lies; not once in this article do the authors write about the promotion of racism. What this article is trying to say is that there is reason to believe that “American Sniper” is promoting Islamophobia, which has nothing to do with race. So why is the title of this article, “American Sniper Promotes Racism”? Islamophobia, although also rooted in ignorance, is not racism; the word racism is a strong word and the Playwickian cannot continue to blindly use it as a blanket term for any sort of negative behavior against people of a different background.

–Kathyryn Kochanowicz
Feasterville, PA