Maybe Americans should be exposed to different cultures and people at an early age. Maybe that way, when they grow older, they won't fear anybody who is unlike themselves.
I'm not that worried actually because I guess the situation is improving. The Blacks went through hell because the White Americans were so threatened by them. Paranoia at the time absolutely consumed Americans. Fast forward to the 21st century, the civil rights movement has come and gone, Blacks are still discriminated against and the White Americans still don't trust them. However, one must admit, the situation has improved. Americans are slowly realizing that African-Americans are not the barbaric, canablistic brutes that they once believed. In the same way, once Americans realize that the Arabs are in fact very similar to them, perhaps they will not view Arabs as brutes. But as we all know, America has had its fair share of witchhunts. First it was the witches, then the blacks then the communists now the terrorists... when will it all end? I suspect that the root cause lies in the lack of diversity in America. The whole melting pot deal rather defeats the purpose of diversity. After all, how can a country be both a melting pot and diverse at the same time? Since Americans tend to isolate and segregate themselves into like-communities (suburbs, ghettos), Americans tend to distrust other communities. For example, an Asian-American male student I know had to live with a white American family in a wealthy suburb for the remaining two years of his high school career. This was because the Asian-American's parents decided to move back to Korea. Within this friendly white family's household, were two very pretty girls. Now to me and the host family, the fact that an Asian-American was living in a white household with two pretty girls was not an issue. But to the gossipy next door white neighbors, indeed it was an issue - I will not specify what the issue was (one could logically conclude that the Asian-American male would "corrupt" the two pretty girls). Even more shocking, that Asian-American student was homecoming royalty and the neighbours were perplexed as to how a "foreign exchange student" could become so popular.
Needless to say, the host family no longer fears and distrusts Asian-Americans. On the other hand, the neighbours, reflecting the attitudes of most Americans today, are still bound by their own prejudices, and most probably, the think of Arabs as being essentially evil.
Original: Americans need to take a field trip to the middle east