Arab American Issues and Resources

Re: ‘Arab’

 Dear Mr. Chou:

 Thank you for speaking to me this morning about our strong opposition to the eight definitions of the word ‘Arab’ contained in your Dictionary.com’s Thesaurus.  I would like to know the sources and actual citations from which you obtained these inaccurate definitions. True, some people might pejoratively use the word ‘Arab’, but you would agree that such meanings have not become acceptable connotations in the English language- and they must categorically be rejected.

The word Arab is a name given to the ancient and present-day inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula and often applied to the peoples closely allied to them in ancestry, language, religion, and culture. Presently more than 300 million Arabs are living mainly in 22 countries.

I call upon you to immediately remove these pejorative definitions and replace them with acceptable ones. We also demand that you issue a public statement, which clearly apologizes for the hurt our community feels and the immediate steps you will embark upon to correct the error.
In the absence of such an immediate response, AAF is ready to go public with a press release and media blitz. 

Respectfully,  

Aref Assaf, PhD

President