Arab-Americans Call Christmas TV Show Racist
A national Arab-American organization wants the animated Christmas program “The Little Drummer Boy” pulled from video stores; and television lineups, saying it contains racist stereotypes.
The half-hour children’s show, produced in 1968, portrays Arabs; as money-grubbing, fat, ugly, hook-nosed kidnapers, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said.
“We are particularly concerned that this film feeds the wrong message about Arabs to children. How would this look if you had a little Arab drummer and the bad guys were money-grubbing Jewish men?” said Zana Macki, director of the Detroit office of the committee.
A spokeswoman for Viacom, the program’s distributor, said no complaints about the program have been received, but any that come in will be reviewed.
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