Dr. Phil is annoying!

In this story, a young American girl met a man online through myspace and decided to leave home to meet him. Its another creepy story of another girl being seduced by an older man on the internet and believing she is in love. Nothing new, we have seen it so many times. The problem here is that this man is an Arab from Palestine. Through Dr. Phil's program, the Middle East is depicted as a backward and mysterious land where they kidnap and brainwash women. Hmm, well I have lived in Egypt for almost a year and I have not been kidnapped or brainwashed. There are still discriminations toward women but the Middle East has dramatically improved and continues to improve. It is also actually safer for me to live in Egypt because the crime and rape rate is lower than America. I just have to deal with neighbors who love gossip and men who whistle and try to talk to me on the street. I also visited the area where the girl traveled to and it is actually a safe part of Palestine and it is not routinely being bombed. As long as she stays away from Gaza she will be fine and if the man's father bought her a plane ticket without hesitation or insurance, then the family has plenty of money to protect her. The second half of the movie clip is in Arabic so you won't be able to understand it but I found an article that summarizes the situation. The Arab women actually chewed out the man for not defending his reputation and making people believe that all Arabs are dangerous people and for hitting the girl (yes I totally agree with Dr. Phil that hitting and violence should not be tolerated...but this happens ALL over the world, NOT just in the Middle East!) the women also asked the man why he didn't date a Palestinian woman....it would have saved him a lot of trouble. Hmmm.

I'm glad that the girl returned home. I don't believe that you can fall in love over the internet and that you shouldn't put that much trust into strangers. However, I am really upset because of the way Dr. Phil portrayed the Middle East. He has no right, and his stereotypes are wrong. And then to make his last comment saying that he was happy the girl met a good American guy!?!?! First of all, people have the right to love whomever they want. Nationality should not be important. It is true that some Arab men are creepy, but there are also so many creepy American men. I run away from both! haha , but the comment about the 34 phone messages make sense. My friends constantly call me and they freak out when I turn off my phone. :)


So watch the movie and read the article. You know my opinion. The girl was acting foolishly and she should have never traveled. But Dr. Phil had no right to treat the Middle East the way he did. This is really frustrating because I feel a lot of Westerners have the same problem as him. They are too quick to judge and end up destroying images of people and insulting them. People need to be open minded and in this case consider that fact that she was dating online, not the fact that the guy she happened to "fall in love with" was from the Middle East.

If you disagree or have other comments please let me know! I'm always curious to know people's opinions.

You can find the article here:

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3339.shtml