Muslim Prejudice in Modern Youth Society Essay

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

After a horrible terroristic attack that shocked the whole world on September 11th in the center of New York City, Muslims in the Western world have been constantly fighting against prejudice. After September 11, media interest in Islam increased, where Islam was usually portrayed in a negative way. Before 9/11, many Muslims lived the normal, everyday life. However, the attack has changed lives of many people that belonged to the Muslim community, where they were the victims of guilt. Unfortunately, many Americans were introduced to Islam, after the 9/11 attack, thus even till today, Islam is associated with terrorism. For the past ten years, Muslims felt excluded from the American society by being rifled, attacked, discriminated, checked

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.

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 agonizing terrorist attacks of September 9th, 2001 left the country in emotional distress. The United States of America decided to prepare for tragic attacks like this and reevaluated its immigration and foreign policies, the citizens of the US also became united and stronger from these attacks. This ideology that the US has become more united after an attack that killed nearly 3,000 people has become mainstream and may be true in some cases, but many people overlook the impact it had on the millions of Muslim Americans. The Muslim generation before us had its own problems dealing with racial discrimination and hate crimes, many people believed it stop their but this contempt was passed on to my generation. The discrimination I have received has caused me to change my aspirations in order to ensure that no one else receives the treatment I had gotten.

Within days of the attacks every news channel was showing pictures of the hijackers. From these pictures Americans turned their fear and hatred on to anyone who looked like the attackers. During the process of adjusting to the aftermath of September 11, Muslim Americans faced an upsurge in negative stereotypes expressed by the larger society (American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, 2003; Cassel, 2006) and Muslim immigrants, more than any other Immigrant group, were met with negative attitudes (Council of American Islamic Relations, 2003; Saroglou & Galand, 2004). But there is still discrimination present throughout the U.S , we all see it on the news or in person at school. There language is different so people discriminate against them. It does not matter if you are actually Arab or if you just look Arab or had a foreign name that sounded Arab they would look at you bad. This was a problem at airports, jobs, and schools because people were suspicious. Life was hard for Arab-Americans because people could not trust them. Many Arab- Americans and those who looked like Arabs were directly and adversely

Stereotypes often determine how we see people who are different from us. Stereotypes play such an important role in our perceptions of others, but what exactly are they? A stereotype is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing (Williams, 2013). In essence, stereotypes are not limited to different races and ethnicities, but also include: genders, social classes, cultures and even certain hobbies. In light of the increase of negative attention that Muslims have been receiving in the media, the stereotypes discussed in this paper will be centered on Muslims. Specifically, the stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists will be analyzed.

Muslims faced tremendous amounts of prejudice after the September 11th attacks. The September 11th attacks were four coordinated attacks perpetrated by the terrorist group known as Al Qaeda. These attacks killed 2,996 people and injured more than 6,000 innocent people. These terrorist attacks also contributed to the fear that we now know as Islamophobia.

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

While the events of September 11, 2001, cast the Islam religion in an unfavorable light, this has not dampened the enthusiasm of the Muslim members, nor has it

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

Ever since the start of September 11, 2001, Muslims around the world and in the United States have been targeted, taken to war, murdered,

The U.S. government used the propaganda tool of name-calling, referring to Iraqi and Muslim individuals as extremists and suicidal maniacs to act in accordance with people's already formed stereotypes. With the media consistently broadcasting images and news of the Taliban suppressing their women, accepting abuse against women and the heinous killings by this regime, the public's negative stereotypes were upheld. The persistent bombardment of negative images of Muslims in the media fueled those members of society with racist beliefs and the combination of the two generated a powerful force which would later benefit the government when the call for support of the war would appear. Such individuals were the first to support US President Bush to invade Iraq and get rid of the 'scum' that threatened the U.S.'s future. Immediately after the attacks, the stereotypes were converted from opinions and beliefs to actions. Hatred toward all Muslims became an unfortunate reality. Instead of hating the terrorists, people generalized their hate to all members of Islamic religion or Middle Eastern decent. People held the view that all Muslims and Middle Eastern individuals were potential 'terrorists.'

After the fall of the Ottoman empire, Turkey received an identity as Modern Turkey from Kemal Ataturk. With Turkey being home to over 45 different ethnic and religious groups, this makes it a diverse and unique nation, with demographics varying depending on the region This goes to show how unity is important in a diverse country like Turkey for its future success. All of these contribute to the cultural makeup of this country. Turkey’s current population is 78 million. According to a report, 70% of Turkey will reach working age by the year 2023. (United Nations 87 ). This goes to show that right now there is a very large young population in Turkey that is on the verge of joining the workforce. This will dramatically affect the economy in Turkey. As it relates to society, this has great cultural implications, because the next generation will make up the moral fabric of society.

The Youth of Islam today are dwelling in a crisis and it is a shame to say that most of them know not of what they are in engrossed in. Others out of ignorance disobey the commandments of Allah (SWT) and the guidance of the Prophet, Muhammad (SAW), thus bringing upon them the wrath and anger of Allah (SWT). The lack of authentic knowledge and taqwa (fearing and being cautiously aware of Allah) allows the shaytaan to throw in doubts and arrogance into the hearts of the young Muslims. This leads them directly towards the wrong path and straight to the fire. Therefore without knowledge and a firm foundation of taqwa the young Muslim well never see the light and the beauty of the religion they are obligated to embrace. The lack of knowledge and taqwa also opens the doors to many major issues such as identity crisis, venom of the media, bad companionship, love and attachment to the dunya, and lack of confidence. Although there may be more reasons to the downfall of the youth these few that were mentioned are the main issues that the youth must combat because they are things you deal with on a day to day basis. Time is running and day after day we are losing our brothers and sisters to these issues. It is a matter of time before we completely lose them and they become so engulfed in disobedience that they begin to join forces with those who are cursed by Allah (SWT),