24).
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Whenever this country engages in a war with a specific group of people, people living in the US that share the same ethnic background of "the enemy" usually become targeted by just about everyone else, including the citizens as well as the government. As Bill Maxwell of the St. Petersburg Times states:.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. government, once relatively friendly toward Arabs and Muslims wanting into the country, has removed the welcome mat.
Indeed this country has "removed the welcome mat." Maxwell goes on to further his argument, stating that foreign Muslims who want visas simply for medical help because they are seriously ill cannot get a visa in a day like they used to be able to. He then proceeds to give an example of a well-respected Saudi journalist in need of a new liver, Mohammed al-Kathiri, who died because he was denied a visa to go to Texas for treatment. By far, the most over looked fact that Maxwell brings up is the point that "Gone are many millions of dollars that Muslims spend annually in the nation's tourist industry."(Source: Arab students face hardships post-9/11 ,St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg, Fla.; Nov 20, 2002; BILL MAXWELL;).
By now, it seems that a lot of people (though not nearly close to all) have changed their views on the people of the Middle East and realize that it is not all of them that are responsible for this problem, but only a tiny minority of them that are. This was not relayed to me in any newspaper or article, but was discovered through my own, personal experience with people. Through this all, I have seen people point fingers, use racial slurs, and go rampant with close-minded racism. But now what I see is this political correctness fall upon a lot of people, which has gotten a vast majority to change their minds. Even the most conservative and eager to blame people that I know have redirected their index fingers from people of Middle Eastern descent to those that the U.