Let's Really Talk about: Minorities in the media

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http://youtu.be/UMbK54wq1mg

One of my friends, Shareef Elkady, is a homosexual that struggles with the image the media portrays of gay mailes. He feels that because of the stereotypes that are perpetuated through media, people expect all homosexuals to be one of the two extremes, when in reality most are somewhere in between. I find this is true for most stereotypes, and its sad that people who only see these to polar extremes through media use them to judge the rest of the world.

Did I mention Shareef's family are Egyptian, and most middle eastern families practice Islam? If any of you know anything about the religion of Islam, you probably know they have no tolerance for homosexuality. I had to redo this video but the first time i filmed it Shareef Explained that homosexuality in Islamic culture is punishable by death, and that was something drilled in his head as a child. Traveling back and forth from America to Egypt where is father and his father's side of the family, Shareef felt like he had to live a double life in order to hide his true self from his family.

But even through all of that Shareef still hold Islam very close to his heart, because it represents his family. So he also find the media's image of people of Middle Eastern Decent to be quite disturbing. "they do more than drie taxi's and own Dry cleaners. They own restaurants...my father owned a restaurant actually" Shareef hopes that one day the world would not depend on the tainted pictures the media paints to judge people they don't know or understand.

I really wish you all could see the first video I did and I wish i had more than a five minute time limit for the video. Shareef offered up some very interesting insight on the matters at hand and I really enjoyed hearing his opinion. If you ever get a chance to talk with Shareef especially about any minority group and the media he will talk for days about it. It's a subject that he is very passionate about. If you would like you can be friends with Shareef on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/shareef.elkady