Arab/Muslim Stereotype

Main Piece: “Every Arab who is a Muslim and is a male is either named Mohamed, Ali, or Yousef” Context:  On April 7, 2018 I called an Uber to go to a party. When the driver arrived I said “Hi, how are you doing today? My name is Jaeson. Nice to meet you”. He replied “ I am doing great. Yousef nice to meet you to. He then said “Yup… another Yousef”.  He then said “Every Arab who is a Muslim and is a male is either named Mohamed, Ali, or Yousef”. I said I am sorry can you repeat that. He said ok and repeated it. I asked him if I could write it down as a collection of folklore and he said yes. Background: Yousef is a 27 year old Uber driver who drives a red Camry. He is Arab and he is also a Muslim.  Analysis: I was intrigued to learn this stereotype about Arabs and Muslim from an Arab. I went to a high school that had a large population of Arabs and there was a large portion with the name Mohamed, Ali, and Yousef. However, it is not true that everyone single Arab has one of those three names. It surprises me how people could generalize a population with no evidence.