Causes Of Xenophobia

Islamophobia, the term that was not very well-known before September 11, 2001, is now known to almost any individual of any age. After September 11th, islamophobia became a part of many Muslims’ daily lives (O’Connor “How 9/11 Changed These Muslim Americans’ Lives Forever.”) Not only did Muslims have trouble going through customs and security at the airports, but they also encountered islamophobia in their daily routine. Since September 11th, terrorist jokes became popular among many non-Muslim Americans who oftentimes did not understand the seriousness and the offensiveness of those jokes. Some found the “Muslim terrorist” stereotype to be somewhat justified and did not consider it to be as insulting as, for example, the representation of Black and Asian Americans in 1920s and 30s cartoons. However, the two are equally abusive and it is horrible to realize that in some ways, the American

Among the minorities, people with an Islamic religious viewpoint are treated differently throughout America. A dark day in United States history,

In Europe, Islamophobia emerged together with new anti-Semitism, where the targets are the new immigrants, Muslims, as well as Jews. The reason for that is in France and United Kingdom, Muslims and Jews for the past decade inhabit the poorest neighborhoods. Media, on the other hand, portrays this as an incapability of Muslim immigrants to integrate into European society and susceptibility to the imported Islamist ideologies (Silverstein, 367).

There were 1.6 billion Muslims in the world as of 2010 – roughly 23% of the global population and Islam continues to be the fastest-growing major religion (Pew Research Center). Islamophobia and hatred towards Muslims has also been on the rise. “Islamophobia is prejudice towards or discrimination against Muslims due to their religion, or perceived religious, national, or ethnic identity associated with Islam” (Bridge.Georgetown). In our history we have witnessed many horrific acts of hatred and genocides such as the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, to society and today 's people that was all in the past. In the books, “Night” by Elie Wiesel and “Forgotten Fire” by Adam Bagdasarian illustrates the conditions of victims having to go through these genocides, this shows the severity of prejudice and how affects people 's lives. The reality of it is that times have not changed that drastically and theses bloodcurdling events have seemed to repeated themselves in a new period of time with a new group oppressed people. Innocent people everyday are being targeted because of their religious backgrounds. These stereotypes of Muslims and Islam have become so widespread and the world 's perspectives have changed drastically. Society is undoubtedly witnessing a rapid uprising of a new era of hatred and genocide, just like in the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide in the form of Islamophobia, media propaganda, and false representations of Muslims being terrorists.

The “mold of a Muslim post 9/11 was anyone fitting the description of a Muslim, which was wearing a hijab for women and wearing a turban for men. If you went to a mosque, which was the Muslim house of worship, you were considered a Muslim. Anyone who fit that “mold” had a red flag put on them. For example, Rasha and her family were arrested and detained by the FBI in the middle of the night, “because they were being investigated for possible terrorism connections” (21). Due to the heightened level of security after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 committed by Muslim extremist; this family was targeted because of their religious beliefs. Ironically, the Muslim extremism that the terrorists of 9/11 depicted was a direct contrast of the true core Muslim values of honesty and compassion that Muslims are taught in their families. For instance, when she was young, Rasha’s parents taught her “the simple values of honesty, compassion and protecting her honor” (17). Readers can see that Rasha’s family valued their Muslim heritage and brought her up to value them as

Following the terror attacks in The Unites States in 2001, there has been an increase in Islamophobia in the Western World. Following 9/11, respondents indicate that levels of implicit or indirect discrimination in The United States rose by 82,6% and experiences of over discrimination by 76,3% (http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/21/3/317.short). A combination of how Arabs and Muslims are portrayed in the media, with the increase of organized terrorist groups and refugees since the Arabic Spring, makes this a big political challenge today. This bibliography is written to get an overview of why Islamophobia has increased and the challenges that comes with the rise of Islamophobia.

From the segregation and discrimination of African American’s to threats towards Muslims. Sadly discrimination in the United States is still happening today. These people that are affected are not equal to the other people who aren’t getting discriminated against. Studies show that it racism and discrimination is a big problem and it’s getting worse. “In a new nationwide poll conducted by CNN and the Kaiser Family Foundation, roughly half of Americans -- 49% -- say racism is "a big problem" in society today” (Shoichet, CNN). Discrimination is a big problem and it’s only getting worse. Racial tensions are on the rise. The Muslim community has been repeatedly harassed and attacked because of their religion. “They have been harassed, fired from jobs, denied access to public places, and otherwise discriminated against because they wear hijab” (ACLU). Society sees them as future terrorist because terrorist in the Middle East claim to be Muslim. Society plays a big role in discrimination. “Racism is inevitable in any society” (Shoichet, CNN). There is always going to be racism is society. It’s going to happen to different people. That doesn’t mean that it should be brushed over or ignored. Society can manipulate other people into thinking that what they say is correct. “They perpetuate certain ways of seeing the world and peoples within that world” (Jiwani, Racism and the media). Society can change the way some people

Islamophobia within the United States is an ongoing social issue that negatively impacts the Muslim-American community. Muslim-Americans are forty-eight percent more likely to have experienced discrimination and harassment in the past year compared to Protestants, Catholics, and Jews (“Islamophobia,” n.d.), thus confirming the fact that many non-Muslims within America view followers of Islam as worthy of being labeled as scapegoats and foreigners more than the followers of any other religion deemed harmless to American society. With regards to this social problem rooted in discriminatory profiling, this paper examines how the social conflict, structural functionalist, and symbolic interactionist theories can be used to examine the issue of Islamophobia in America.

These shortsighted views contribute to the major issues that affect Muslims, which involve prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice is a preconceived judgment, that is usually based on insufficient information (Tatum 102). Discrimination is the actions taken toward members of a group because of their group membership (Feldman 444). Specifically, these issues include harassment at airports, accusations of aligning their beliefs with ISIS, and alienation from U.S. communities. In particular, Muslim Americans can experience discrimination at airports for expressing stereotypical attributes of Muslims, such as Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, a

Xenophobia marches across the planet Despite the xenophobic and racist beliefs to be completely irrational primarily because God created human as imago Dei, which means that we are all His children, at the certain periods of the history of humanity and in some circumstances these beliefs may seem logical from people’s subjective point of view (Rydgren, 2004). It may happen because of the lack of information or due to the cognitive limitations that make people massively follow a charismatic leader and adhere to the suggested ideology. Unfortunately, xenophobia always causes a tragedy whether it is concentration camps described by Elie Wiesel in “Night,” or racial segregation drafted by Langston Hughes in “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”

Muslim immigrants have arrived to the United States of America from every nuke and corner of the sphere. The population is diverse in their own ways but each one of them bears similar reasons: Some desire to escape an old way of life, others to find a new one. Some wanted to escape violence, others the fetters of penury, or simple lack of opportunity. They have arrived with fervent hope, and often nothing more. The initial response received by them was largely varied. These new Americans found a vast new land hungry for their labor. But some, unfamiliar with these newcomers’ customs and religions, treated the new Americans as outsiders and believed they could never be real Americans. And with the events like the Gulf War and the World Trade Center bombing outpoured anti-Islamic sentiments in the 1990s. These sentiments intensified with the heinous and abominable attacks of September 11th. Muslims were being labeled as “extremists”, “jihadists”, “fanatics”, “fundamentalists” etc. They were being feared, discriminated and even harassed.

Every year, one million immigrants settle in the United States hoping for a new beginning, new opportunities, and a new life; however, they are welcomed by animosity, injustice, and discrimination. Even the president of the United States finds these immigrants to be troublesome despite their dedication to work hard to sustain themselves in their new home. Race related crimes continue to increase and the government is clearly making efforts to prevent more immigrants from seeking refuge in America as evidenced by the recent Muslim ban put into place by the Trump administration. Individuals fleeing from discrimination in their homelands are welcomed to a new form of discrimination here in the land of the free. Muslim

So they tend to take drastic measure in order to seek change in the world such as killing themselves and others to pursue betterment for humanity. In this paper I will be touching base on race and the Islamic religion and culture and how they are perceived within Capitalist countries and the rest of the world. What is Islamophobia? Islamophobia is a contrived fear or prejudice fomented by the existing Eurocentric and Orientalist global power structure. It is directed at a perceived or real Muslim threat through the maintenance and extension of existing disparities in economic, political, social and cultural relations, while rationalizing the necessity to deploy violence as a tool to achieve "civilizational rehab" of the target communities (Muslims or

September 11th holds many hard and upset feelings around the world today. The harsh actions of Muslim extremists unfortunately completely changed the way Muslims are treated, especially in the United States. These events, exacerbated islamophobia. Unfortunately, “the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, connect Muslims and Islam to terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States.” (Byng) Although it has been over a decade since the attack, many still feel racist and discriminatory attitudes towards Muslims. Muslims are the targeted minority in the United States, “the 9/11 terrorist attacks shifted the social and political context for Muslims in the United States. Terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States carried out by Muslims places an identity at the center of national and global politics.” (Byng) The blame of the horrible terrorist attacks, rather than be placed on terrorists or religious extremist, has been placed on Islam in America. After September 11th, hate crimes towards Muslims skyrocketed, “the most dramatic change noted by the report was a more than 1,600 percent increase in reported hate crimes against Muslims -- a jump from 28 hate incidents in 2000 to 481 last year.”

A current cultural conflict taking place in America today is religious. Many Americans discriminate against the Islamic faith and there have been countless acts of mistreatment of Muslims in the work place, at school, in public, and in the media. Negative feelings and acts toward Muslims have become so prevalent that in 1991 the Runnymede Trust Report coined a term for it. The report defined the “unfounded hostility toward Muslims, and therefore fear or dislike of all or most Muslims” as “Islamophobia” (Defining “Islamophobia”). There has always been some religious cultural conflict with Muslims in the United States, but since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, conflict has escalated significantly.