A retired Lebanese-American communications professor has dedicated himself to eliminating negative stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims that he says flood the U.S. media and distort American perceptions.

Since the 1970s, images of Muslims and Arabs in the media have been painted as violent, aggressive, villainous, ugly, and even sub-human. Retired Southern Illinois University professor Jack Shaheen said the routine of stereotyping perpetuated by American media has plagued minorities for decades.

Many, including Shaheen, blame the media for inventing and continuing the stereotypes that have largely shaped America’s image of minorities. Some scholars argue that these images, which show the target minorities to be different and somehow inferior to the majority population, have softened the protests against wars, racial and religious profiling and other programs that have largely targeted these populations.

For decades, media stereotypes have targeted minorities including Native Americans, African Americans, Jewish Americans, Mexican Americans, and increasingly, Arabs and Muslims both domestically and internationally.

Shaheen told McClatchy Newspapers his writing about racial and religious stereotyping in the American media began when he noticed many of the cartoons his children would watch portrayed Arabs and Muslims as villainous – as the “other.”

Shaheen said his research has found that Hollywood and the media have been perpetuating the same formula to denigrate minorities in America.

The professor turned author, who was a consultant in the film “Syriana,” has appeared on “The Today Show,” “Nightline,” and CNN.

The internationally acclaimed author and media critic told McClatchy Newspapers, “I don’t talk about my work with most people, because it gets one of those ‘Oh’ responses and the subject changes.”

Shaheen was deemed “a one-man anti-defamation league,” by former White House correspondent Helen Thomas, a fellow Lebanese-American.

Shaheen said, “I think there’s a growing awareness and I see change happening. I don’t think I’ll be a one-man band for very long. But there’s no group behind me. I don’t have grants. Someone’s eventually going to say ‘Shaheen did this, but I can take it a step further.’ And that’s what I want to see happen.”

The advocate has written four books and a documentary on the subject of racial stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims in the media. He has also led seminars throughout the Middle East and has given more than a thousand lectures and speeches around the globe. He has also had several essays published by Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

His most recent book, Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 9/11, investigates Arab and Muslim images in more than 100 post-9/11 movies and calls on the media to break away from the stereotypes.

The writer said the problem began long before the 2001 attacks, citing cartoons his children watched in the 1970s. Shaheen said it was after noticing these stereotypes in children’s programs and its subsequent influence on public perception of minorities that he became intrigued by the issue.

Shaheen, who is the son of Christian Lebanese immigrants, said “My roots were always important to me, but I guess they started surfacing when I saw these ugly Arab characters surfacing on TV. I didn’t really pay much attention at first, but I started scribbling notes now and then.”

After spending a year at the American University of Beirut on a Fulbright teaching award, Shaheen said he returned the States feeling even more aware of the negative portrayal of Arabs and Muslims he was fed by the media and worries how they might affect younger generations.

“Any time they [his children] saw a cartoon talking about ugly Arabs about to do damage to something, their job was to tell me. Then I began watching the shows with them and started writing about it. By day, I was a journalism professor and then at night, I would go and do research on this particular area.”

When several publications rejected his article submissions, Shaheen decided to write a book on the subject.

“I remember going to the library looking for literature and there was nothing on Arab images in American popular culture. Zilch. But there were books on images of Jews, women, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, and I just gobbled those up. I studied them all to learn from their strengths and weaknesses. The exposure to that literature and history helped me not only look at images of the past from a different perspective, but it made me look for commonalities in demonization.”

His research found the same formula was repeatedly being used by media sources to degrade minorities and to associate the groups with negative images.

“In order for a stereotype to be successful, they can’t be like us. They can’t have children. They can’t be devout. They can’t value human life as much as we do. They are violent. They oppress their women. They are savages.

“When I grew up, it was Native Americans and blacks. We had the red scare with Communists. So, we have all of these formulas from the past that sort of make their way to the present.

“Now its Arab equals Muslim equals the godless enemy other. And it’s hard, because once we begin to get a fixed image of a people or a faith in our minds, it’s difficult to shake.”

Shaheen said for religious and ethnic stereotypes to be diminished, his efforts must be met with support from politicians, celebrities and the media.

“Silence means approval and at some point these guys have to say: ‘Intolerance is intolerance. It’s just as wrong to vilify an Arab as it is a Jew or a black, and we need to stop doing that.’ That hasn’t happened yet and it has to start at the top, because then you set a precedent. Then it filters down.”