Is Islamophobia a Form of Racism?

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

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).

Foreign and domestic policies are not linear, rather the policies are connected in a circle, with each policy reinforcing the values of another. Domestic American terrorism in the prison and detention systems and governmental reforms are influenced by the mobilization and ethnocentrism abroad. The militarization internationally is justified by the domestic handling of the same cultural issues within the United State borders. The United States has strangely used a near Catch-22 to handle dilemmas. The United States has allowed perspective to become reality, whether with oneself or regarding issues abroad, specifically in the Middle East. Terrorism is the use or threat of fear for political or economical gain. An internal characteristic of terrorism is how dependent it is of perspective, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. To understand “terrorism,” a focus must be applied to the history, what drove an organization to commit such acts. Respectively, the Middle East has been a hotbed for the key word “terrorism,” especially because of 9/11. Subsequently, Muslims have been stigmatized by the United States as terrorists. The consequences spawned because of 9/11 require a look to the past to understand the present.

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.

A 2006 Today/Gallup poll found that 44% of Americans had the perception that all Muslims were too extreme in their religious beliefs and 22% of the respondents would not want a Muslim as a neighbor. Islamophobia in America skyrocketed as a result of the 9/11 attacks and changed the way that Muslim-Americans and other Americans were able to interact with one another. These statistics show that there was significant fear of Muslims in the years after 9/11. In the years following the attacks, the number of hate crimes against Muslims in America spiked and have not dropped to pre-attack levels since. As Graph 1 shows, in 2001, there were a reported 481 hate crimes and majority of these would have occurred in the months following September. Although

Since 9/11/2001 hate crimes related to Islam-phobia has risen to nearly 481 and since has stayed above 100 in subsequent years. In 2015, 2% of hate crimes are anti-Islamic. Many times people are attacked for wearing hijabs, and even non-Islamic, Arabic people that wear hijabs are attacked because of their "terrorist" appearance. This is a ludicrous thing, comparing a group of millions of faithful followers to 22 extremists. Now, every day, Islamic followers live in fear of being attacked for their beliefs; this fear escalates one day a year—9/11.

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.”

The mass media selectively promotes racial profiling. The assumptions driving terrorism profiling are not any different than “street-level” profiling—in that, a particular crime (in this case, terrorism) is most expected to be committed by members of a particular religious, ethnic, or racial group and that the members of that group (in this case, Muslims) are, in general, likely to be implicated in that manner of criminal activity…These assumptions are highly defective. The assumption that terrorist acts are inevitably perpetrated by Arabs or that the architect, of a terrorist act, is likely to be Islamic is a faulty assumption. While all the men, believed to have been, involved in the September 11th hijackings were of Arabic nationality, Richard Reid, who on December 22, 2001, attempted to ignite a volatile device on a trans-Atlantic flight, was a British citizen of Jamaican ancestry. This furthermore coincides with my line of reasoning that extremists exist throughout all cultures. In fact, prior to September 11th the deadliest act of terrorism on United States soil was initiated by [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh. Even non-Arabs like John Walker Lindh, a Californian, can be linked to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and

Islamophobia is the fear of Muslims, or the religion of Islam, according to BBC (2017). Some people blame all Muslims for terrorist attacks, that are caused by terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, Isis, and Boko Haram. These organizations allegedly follow Islam, I say they allegedly follow Islam, because if they had indeed studied Islam, they would understand that Islam is a religion of peace, not terrorism. The word “Islam” means submission to God’s will and obedience to God’s law. It derives from an old Arabic word meaning “peace”. (What is Islamophobia? – CBBC News Round. (2017, June 19).

Ever since September 11, 2001 Americans along with the majority of the world’s population have been skeptical of Muslims. It’s a sad reality but it’s hard for people to think of a Muslim without linking them directly to terrorism. But these assumptions aren’t totally out of the blue—the Muslim’s religion, Islam, teaches a low tolerance for other religions and the Islamic government has no separation of church and state, so it’s only normal to assume that their government shall have a low tolerance as well—some however, immediately translate this into terrorism. Through the Islamic government and religion, relations with foreign countries, and separation amongst themselves it can be concluded that Islamic Fundamentalism is clearly a threat

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.

As a result of Islamophobia; there were a lot of reports of assaults, attacks on mosques and other hate crimes against Muslims last years, . Muslims have been shot and killed, execution-style, in their living room, and outside of their mosques. They have

Islam is the religion that is followed through Muslims about the teachings through Muhammad by the prophet Allah. Today Islam is considered as one of the most prominent religions followed throughout the world. Though Islam is thought of has one of the most popular religion across the world, many still lack the understanding of what Islam is. Following 9/11, the perception of Muslims changed thus proposing the idea of Islamophobia. Defined by the Oxford English Dictionary Islamophobia is the unfair prejudice or discrimination towards Muslims due to race, religion, or ethnic identity. The idea changed the way that all Muslims were perceived throughout America and the world. Muslims today face discrimination throughout the society. Following 9/11 the Muslim people are being treated unfairly because of their religion by the exclusion of the Muslim culture in American society, Muslims are being targeted and harmed in public, and Muslims are perceived as a terrorist or threat to national security.

Before the September 11, 2001, hatred towards Muslims in the United States started in 1923, when Muslims started migrating to the United States, an unlike increased presence. The hatred towards Muslims, also known as “Islam phobia”, was first featured in The Journal of Theological Studies. Many Muslims were targeted, the religion of Islam, Muslims, or any ethnic group perceived to be Muslim were characterized as having “bad faith and cruelty”, according to prejudice Americans.

In Oxford English Dictionary, Islamophobia is defined as “intense dislike or fear of Islam, especially as a political force, hostility or prejudice towards Muslims.” This term was first used in 20th century and had its’ own definition at 1970s. Particularly, after the 11 September events -which a radical Islamic group claimed its responsibility- in U.S.A. most of the non-Muslims in the world knew the Muslims with violence. The Berkeley Institute on Racism Studies says that Islam is often seen as a religion of violence which supports terrorism and has a violent political ideology. This perception of Islam is enlarging globally more and more because of some reasons such as terrorist attacks in non-Muslim countries, effect of media on the people, misunderstanding of Islam, and lack of the true representative