Causes of Psychological Trauma and Its Effects on Young Arab Americans Post 9/11

The number of hate crimes against Muslims in the United States went up after the 9/11 attacks and it remains a huge problem today. According to Disha, “the numbers of anti-Muslim hate crimes

    On September 11, 2001, Islamic extremists stole four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against the United States. Two of the airplanes were flown into the twin towers in New York City, the third airplane hit the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth airplane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Known as 9/11, the attacks resulted in extensive death and destruction, triggering the United States to create major changes in their security and terrorism protocols. While everyone agrees that what happened on 9/11 was terrible, many believe that the changes in America’s security protocols are not for the best. How 9/11 affected America’s security protocols was for the worse, it caused: privacy invasion for foreign and American civilians in airports, immigration laws increased out of fear, and discrimination and racism towards Arab civilians.

September 11, 2001 is a date in history that changed the lives of people from all over the world and especially the lives of Americans. On this day nineteen militant men associated with al-Qaeda, an Islamic extremist group, hijacked four airplanes and carried out multiple suicide attacks on different locations in the United States. Two of the planes directly struck the World Trade Center located in New York City, one of the other two planes hit the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and the final plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania before it could reach its final destination. On this day, more than 3,000 people were killed including over 400 first responding police officers and firefighters. In recent years as people look back on that day it is remembered as a time when the country was joined together by grief and showed an overwhelming amount of comfort and support to the victims and their families; it was also a time of extreme national pride. People also remember that following the attacks the economy suffered tremendously, in addition, air traffic which makes up a portion of the economy was greatly disrupted, both of which created uncertainty about the security of the financial markets critical to the success of the United States. What most people do not remember is the immediate backlash and hostility the Muslim and Arab communities received following the attacks by both civilians and the media. This is a topic that has been largely ignored by the public and media’s

Racial profiling as method of counterterrorism is a major problem in the United States. Due to the damaging effects of 9/11 on the moral of the country and the present threats from ISIS, the Muslim-American society as a whole is being depicted in a way that classifies them as extremist terrorists. This fear of the Muslim society has become so dominant that the term “Islamophobia” has been adopted to communicate “fear, hatred and hostility towards Islam and Muslims.” As seen in a 2011 report on the West’s respect for Muslims, 52% percent of the American citizens who answered this poll voted that Western societies do not respect Muslim societies. (See figure 1.) The analysts of Gallup attribute this disrespect and fear of Muslim societies to differences in religion and political interests. (See figure 2.) America needs to reevaluate its counterterrorism strategy in order to account for and respect the human rights of its targets. If not, an entire society of people, Muslim-Americans, will be targeted as terrorists. The targeting of an entire group of people based on

According to NBC News, following the September 11 attacks in 2001, there were four hundred eighty one reported anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States, totaling an average of 40 per month. The number of these attacks continues to rise today. Muslims seem to have targets on their backs. The arrow pointed at them is known as Islamophobia, the hatred and prejudice against the religion of Islam.

One major social problem that Arab Americans face today, is racism and having been labeled as terrorist. In fact the treatment against Arab Americans is very violent and cruel compared to past decades before. Various reports have inquired that after the 9/11 attack on New York, and other attacks that have happened around the world, people have since then viewed Arab Americans as a different type of people, there are harsh feelings that they don’t belong in the United States, because they are dishonest people, nomads, and users. (The Atlantic, 2016). Although

In the 21st century, the Arab and Muslim population faced more discrimination, particularly after the September 9th events in the year 2000. Shammas (2009) examined the impact of 9/11 events on college adjustment of Arab students by implementing a mixed methods study. This study was conducted on Arab students who were Muslim and non-Muslim and non-Arab Muslim students who attended 21 community colleges in California and Michigan. The majority of the 753 participants in this study were female. The researchers identified Arab students as students who were from the Middle East and non-Arab students who were from Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Somalia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bosnia, America, Latin American countries, and Asia. In addition, the researchers clearly identified the procedure for gathering data, which involved distributing surveys on campus (in places such as classrooms, and libraries), and off campuses (in places such as churches, and mosques).

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.”

Furthermore, the development of “programs aimed at preventing hate crimes, violence against women, and discrimination against Muslims should address the unique forms of discrimination faced by Muslim women in America -- both as Muslims and as women” (Time to Address Violence Against Muslim

According to report conducted by the Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI), there has been an increase of violence against Muslim Americans between the year of 2000 to 2001. According to author Junaid M. Aleef of the news article, “To Fight Terrorism, we need to deal with the American Muslim Identity Crisis”, there have been numerous instance of hate crimes toward Muslim-Americans. Aleef mentioned that three Muslim students were assassinated at The University of North Carolina at Chapel. In addition, a teenage Muslim boy died from a hit-and-run motor vehicle incident. Lastly, many mosques along the east coast had possessions stolen and have been vandalized. The progression of terrorist attacks has contributed to the increase in hate crimes against Muslim-Americans. (Aleef).

Life in the Middle East is heavily based on religion much like Christianity, which is very common here.Clothing in that region is conservative because it is influenced by religion, which can also be compared to Christianity. Having a dress code in relation to times of worship is common in all religions. However, it is common that terrorism is compared to the religion of Islam, which results in the discrimination of this religious choice of clothing. This discrimination has lead to several hate crimes against people of Arab descent. In one incident in Chapel Hill North Carolina, three university students were shot and killed. According to Jonathan M. Katz and Richard Perez-Pena, two of these students were newlyweds and one was the wife’s sister. They were also “high achievers who regularly volunteered in the area”(Katz and Perez-Pena). This tragedy spread awareness to many Muslim hate crimes, sparking the trend “#MuslimLivesMatter”. Hate crimes against people of Arab descent is very common. Muslim Public Affairs Council states, “According to the FBI, anti-Islamic incidents were the second least reported hate crimes prior to 9/11, but following 9/11, they became the second highest reported among religion-bias incidents. From pre-9/11 to post-9/11, a growth of 1600% took place”(“Statistics”). This proves that this stereotype linking terrorism to Islam has been very oppressive to Muslim people. According to

Historians, specifically American historians of the 21st century have demonstrated an interest in the Middle East in Islam, due to Americans frequent contact with the Middle East in the early 1960s. Islam and the Middle East have played a remarkable role in Americans discussion and reaction to the events that took place on September 11th, 2001. During this time Americans were beginning to regard the Middle East, Muslims, and Islam as one entity. Americans and the world regarded the Middle East as Islam and Islam as the Middle East. Thus, this correlation between the two made Muslims say Muslim Americans and Muslims in America as less western and more of another, but they were also seen as untrustworthy individuals. Additionally, prior to the September 11th, attacks and an after effect of September 11, was that Muslim men were violent and Muslim women as oppressed individuals. Thus, the perception of Islamophobia and the threat it brings to western society has impacted the discussion of Islamophobia in America.

Terrorism has been a problem in the United States since the late 90s. Some of the key historical incidents are the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, 9/11, and the Oklahoma City bombing. A shadow that seems to hide behind terroristic acts is hate crimes and in particular, hate crimes directed towards Muslims. Is there a causation between terrorism and anti-Muslim hate crime incidents? If so, how big of an impact do terror attacks play on hate crimes? Studies have been conducted regarding the interrelationship between hate crimes and terrorism and whether one is dependent off of the other. The purpose of this study is to present data from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) which provides data on hate crime incidents and the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) which provides data on terroristic incidents in order to understand whether causation exists between terrorism caused in the United States and anti-Muslim hate crimes. Hate crimes directed towards Jews will as well be considered because of the long standing tension and conflicts between the two. Do terrorism incidents cause anti-Muslim hate crime incidents to increase more than anti-Jewish hate crime incidents or vice-versa?

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 were a triggering event for spikes of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate crime in weeks following the events and were so profound that rates of anti-Arab/Islamic hate crime never returned to their pre-9/11 numbers. The media played a large role in the weeks following 9/11 where Arab Americans and Muslims were demonized and profiled as disloyal, anti-American terrorists, perhaps contributing to the rise in incidents of these types of hate crimes. In the following months, Arab and Muslim began to be used interchangeably and became synonymous with “terrorist” and “jihadist.” Well over a decade later, these stereotypes remain and new incidents of tragedies are often first assumed to be the work of Islamic terrorist groups. These stereotypes are damaging and may be related to why anti-Arab/Islamic hate crime have not returned to the rates before 9/11.

Islamophobia happen before 9/11, But it increased more because of 9/11. Anti-Muslim hate crimes used to be the second-least reported, but in 2001, they became the second-highest reported among religious-bias incidents, after anti-Jewish hate crimes. But while Jews are consistently targeted for their faith, the number of incidents has dropped significantly since 2008. Research shows that the U.S. identified more than 160 Muslim-American terrorism suspects and perpetrators in the decade since 9/11, just a percentage of the thousands of acts of violence that occur in the United States each year. “Globally, many Muslims report not feeling respected by those in the West. Significant percentages of several Western countries share this sentiment, saying that the West does not