Factors That Led To The Dehumanization Of Muslims

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

This leads to the discussion of American attitudes on Muslims. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, only a “slim majority of Americans report being comfortable with Muslim women wearing the Burqa (51 percent), a Mosque being built near their home (51 percent) and Muslim men praying at an airport (53 percent).”5 Khan’s article argues that “Since 9/11, the American Muslim community has often been on the defensive, fighting allegations that it supports radicalism, facing extensive scrutiny and intrusive spying by the government, responding to harassment by several law enforcement agencies, and feeling threatened by rising Islamophobia and a culture of hostility towards Islam and Muslims.”6 Here, his language seems to suggest that the American Muslim population is over-reacting because he focuses on the “momentum” the post-9/11 American Muslim’s “intellectuals are now beginning to revive.” In support of this claim, another survey conducted by the Arab American Institute Foundation concluded “eight out of ten Arab Americans…responded to 9/11 by contributing to a victims’ fund,

Immediately affter 9/11, Muslim Americans were victims to more frequent hate crimes and bias incidents. According to the FBI (2002), hate crimes against Muslims rose 1,600 percent between the years of 2000 and 2001; going from 12 hate incidents in 2000 to 93 in 2001. A study conducted immediately after 9/11 showed that 40 percent of Americans felt that the attacks represented the “true teachings of Islam” and that between 2002 and 2003 the number of Americans that thought Islam promotes violence against non-Muslims rose by 14 percent (Panagopoulos, 2006). When Muslims themselves were surveyed, their feelings mirrored the findings in post 9/11 studies: 91 percent of Muslims surveyed believed that discrimination against Muslims in the United

America’s viewpoint on the Muslim group of people was significantly prejudiced by post 9/11. The entire Muslim community was vision negatively as of the events that was taken by Al Qaeda an international terrorist group formed by Osama Bin Laden. Soon, subsequent to the bombing of the twin towers, primary awareness of Muslims habitually originated from labels relating to the Middle East as a whole. According to “Affective Politics after 9/11” Todd Hall proposed that 9/11 was a sensitively prominent event that created an emotional shock wave. He believed the original place of influence were the countless effective reaction of people in the United States who has watched the series of terrorist attacks unfold and causes Americans to view Muslims

The paper notes that in the pre-9/11 America, American Muslims enjoyed the same rights that other Americans did, engaging themselves in such activities as institution-building, public work, and integration. The process of integration, however, was severely disrupted by 9/11 because many Americans unfortunately began to hold all Muslims accountable for the terrorist attack, distrusting them, discriminating against them, and subjecting them to various forms of hatred. The media played a crucial role in this endeavor, as commentators began to draw a link between Islam and extremist political beliefs.

“All Muslims are now suspects” expressed Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman of the Council of American-Islamic Relations. After 9/11 ethnic profiling was directed heavily toward people of Muslim or Arabic descent. Discrimination toward Muslims occurs in many settings and is often degrading and evil. The irrational fear and public mindset swing around the country was a huge consequence of 9/11. Politics, communities, and culture has shifted to where citizens do a double take on those who are Muslims because of the flashback they get when they remember where they were on 9/11. For some, just the sight of a Muslim in our country sends a shockwave though their mind. On September 11, 2001, the United States froze in fear as terrorist attacks

Although 9/11 did compel some Americans to learn more about Islam, it also triggered a wave of anti-Islam feeling that has burgeoned. And though there have been interfaith initiatives, books on Islam, documentaries, education efforts.And shows like "All-American Muslim," polls show that Americans’ negative views of Islam have increased since 9/11, not decreased.

America has a long history of excluding people from society based on race, gender, class, and religion. There is a growing trend of the social exclusion of people based on phenotype, dress, and religious preference. Many Muslims in the United States are denied cultural citizenship. Today, citizenship can not be denied from a person based on these apearence. Since 9/11, the status of Muslims both within the USA and globally has garnered significant attention from scholars, researchers, politicians, and the media. The Pew Research Center pubished several reports on Muslims, from public opinion polls capturing Muslim worldviews and their attitudes toward America and Islamic extremism to the impact Islam has had on the religious and political landscape

Islam is a monotheistic religion, centered around the teachings of the Qu’ran and serving Allah (meaning God in Arabic). However, this Abrahamic religion has been harshly discriminated against in the United States for years. Most prominently throughout the last twelve years, post September 11th, 2001. Unfortunately, issues such as socialization through the media, power distribution, religious ignorance, stereotyping and visible differences have contributed to the ill attitudes towards Muslims. This paper will examine how Americans have been socialized in islamophobia within the United States.

The book titled Muslim American Youth by Selcuk R. Sirin, he discusses the lives of Muslims surrounding the aftermath of the 9/11 and as well as the historical concept of the United States. He indicates, in general, Muslims come from different background. In this essay, I will discuss the things I appreciate about the book, the concept of labeling “others”, how some Muslims are hiding their religious affiliation, the 9/11 memorial and what should be done to neutralize people regard the issue of Islamophobia.

On September 11, 2001, 19 men simultaneously hijacked four commercial airliners in what is, to this day, the single largest successful act of terror perpetrated against the United States of America. The attack, which was orchestrated by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, ignited a perpetual “War on Terror” and thrust Western tensions with the Islamic world into the social and political spotlight. Since then, overarching American attitudes towards Muslim countries have grown increasingly more hostile, with President Donald Trump perpetuating this unfortunate rhetoric to an even greater degree than his predecessors. In his article “Why do So Many Americans Fear Muslims? Decades of Denial about America’s Role in the World,” Jon Schwarz explores Americans’ attitudes towards the Islamic world, raising valid points regarding the United States’ role in provoking

After recent acts of terrorism, Barack Obama hopelessly tried to convince the Muslim American community that recent criticism towards them would stop. Throughout the speech, Obama tried to make the Muslim Americans feel as they were a part of America. In addition, he sent a message to America about the Muslim Americans. These Muslim Americans that Obama addressed are regular Americans striving for a great life. To prove that Muslim Americans are regular Americans, Obama discussed religious ties between Islam and Christianity and brought up the beliefs of some Founding Fathers. This speech was required due to the recent terrorist acts on American soil in San Bernardino and the horrendous attack in Paris. However, this terrorist fear has been present in Americans’ minds since 9/11.

Islam has been around for over a thousand years. The religion has spread across a few continents including America. A recent study demonstrates that there are around 7 million Muslims in the U.S. That compares to around 2.3% of the populace. Despite the fact that the number is not large, it has been increasing in spite of the attack of September 11, 2001. On that day, a lot changed for the Islamic individuals living in the United States. Though the American Muslims had nothing to do with the terroristic attack that happened on that day, their lifestyle was bound to change. The change that happened was not in their religion, or the way they rehearsed it; it occurred in the attitude of the non-Islamic populace. An accusing finger was pointed on the Muslims because the attacks were said to be conducted by Muslim radicals. Generally, the media was the main place Americans would get detailed information about the Muslims, and they were not depicting them positively.

While the Unites States had witnessed terrorist acts on its soil carried about by people of the Muslim faith prior to the events of September 11, they did not yet seem to widely label the Muslim faith as a religion singularly linked with terrorism acts. After the attacks on both the Pentagon and World Trade Towers, that changed as more Muslims reported that they felt their religion was singularly and undoubtedly entwined with acts of terrorism in the minds of most Americans. This led to the finding that 43% of Americans admit to feeling at least "a little" prejudice toward Muslims, a percentage that is more than twice the number who say the same about Christians (18%), Jews (15%) and Buddhists (14%) (Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, 2010).

The connection between Islam and terrorism was not intensified until the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center that pushed the Islamic faith into the national and international spotlight (Smith, 2013). As Smith (2013) articulated, “Many Americans who had never given Islam a second thought before 9/11 now had to figure out how to make sense of these events and relate to the faith tradition that ostensibly inspired them” (p. 1). One way in which people made sense of these events was through the media channels that influenced their overall opinions by shaping a framework of censored ideas (Yusof, Hassan, Hassan & Osman, 2013). In a survey conducted by Pew Forum (2012), 32% of people reported that their opinions of Muslims were greatly influenced by the media’s portrayal of Islam that depicted violent pictorials and fundamentalist Muslims. Such constant negative depiction is likely to lead to the inevitable—prejudice and hate crime. For instance, in 2002 alone there were approximately 481 hate crimes that were carried out against Muslims (Smith, 2013). Ever since the 9/11 attacks Muslim people have been the target of “suspicion, harassment and discrimination” (Talal, n.d., p. 9).