Talk to an Iraqi

This video was one of my favorites from the class and remained that way until I saw Victor's film "Waltz with Bashir". It really made me think of all the stereotypes and generalization that I have (and most likely share with many Americans). How can we judge someone or an entire people without ever talking to one of them or going straight to the source. This video really showed me that some people, myself included, can be very ignorant as well as opinionated. The film was very eye opening to me and I really wished I could have jumped into the screen and talked to him myself. As the film played, my head filled with questions and many of them went unanswered.

What is it like to live there or how is it different from the us?
Do most people own a car? How do you get around?

My list could go on forever. Recently I got curious again and tried to find answers for some of my questions however I had a hard time finding anything that seemed reliable. Most of the answers were written by people that do not live in/have never been to Iraq and simply add to the stereotypes. Some answers seemed "wishy washy" while others seem uninformed (even if they were written by an Iraqi, most of the time it seems that the person answering the question was Iraqi but never lived in Iraq or left at a young age). I wish that I could talk to the guy from the movie since he came to the US so recently and has personally experienced what it is like in Iraq in its current state. I feel that this video does a lot to work towards correcting or eliminating stereotypes but I feel that it is still lacking. We all have questions and no matter how in depth a film is, it will still leave some of them unanswered. What i gathered from the film was that we must think of where we learn what we learn. Essentially I mean that if we do not get our information fro ma credible source (someone who has studied the subject for an extensive amount of time or someone who has been there) or our information may not be true.