Most Americans now know better than to use nasty generalizations about ethnic or religious groups. Disparaging stereotypes -- the avaricious Jew, the sneaky Chinese, the dumb Irishman, the lazy black person -- are now so unacceptable that it's a shock even to hear them mentioned.

Thanks to current international politics, however, one form of ethnic bigotry retains an aura of respectability in the United States: prejudice against Arabs. Anyone who doubts this has only to listen to the lyrics in a song from the animated Disney extravaganza "Aladdin": Oh, I come from a land From a faraway place Where the caravan camels roam. Where they cut off your ear If they don't like your face It's barbaric, but hey, it's home.

Understandably, Arab-Americans are upset. They find it difficult enough that Saddam Hussein is the villain du jour and that terrorists from Arab countries have recently threatened New York. The difficulties mount when policemen in Iran imprison women for showing their hair, or mullahs issue death warrants against authors they consider blasphemous. But the ayatollahs of Iran don't represent all Arabs, nor all Muslims -- just as sleazy televangelists don't represent all Christians, or all Americans.

Bowing to pressure from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Walt Disney Company has agreed to change two lines -- the ones about cutting off ears -- in the home video version of the movie, which will come out in October. The line "It's barbaric, but hey, it's home" will remain.