The act of disregarding fact, evidence, proven studies or statistics in favor of the approval or acceptance of one’s peers is a toxic trend, brought on by an over-correction to post 9/11 Islamophobia. Being able to differentiate between personal prejudice and proven study is detrimental towards ending intolerance, allowing society to move forward, in establishing peace and prosperity.
“99% of Muslims; The overwhelming majority of Muslims reject Sharia law and Muslim extremism”
-Barack Obama The vast majority of Muslims do not support terrorist organizations, many hold extreme beliefs that an average, non-Muslim would consider radical. While it is toxic to make wild assumptions, such as “all Muslims support terrorist organizations” it is equally
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Prior to the recent San Bernardino shooting, multiple neighbors had noticed suspicious activity, originating from Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik’s residence. Not only was there a high volume of package deliveries to said residence, but neighbors also claimed to have noticed late night operations and suspicious work occurring in the garage. In lieu of what they had noticed, all witnesses failed to report any suspicious activity to the authorities, in fear of being labeled “racist.” The irony of the matter being that one could argue it’s more prejudice to not report suspicious activity because of one’s assumption about the culprit’s political, religious, ethnic or spiritual identity. I believe we can confirm, beyond a reasonable doubt that debate, discussion, research and evaluation of such topics would provide a net positive to progression in society and create a much needed reform of religious extremists. While generalizations and false assumptions should be frowned upon, studies/statistics which reflect proven, quantifiable metrics should be discussed further in a civilized manor, without fear of
In 2009, 6,604 hate crime incidents were reported to the FBI, 48.8% of which were motivated by race, 19.7% by religious prejudice, 18.5%by sexual orientation, 11.8% by ethnicity, and 1.5% by disability bias (Hate Crime Statistics, 2009). Recently, the FBI released the 2010 statistics that unfortunately reveal a slight increase in the number of hate crime incidents: 6,628 incidents were reported in 2010, 47.3% of which were motivated by race, 20% by religious prejudice, 19.3% by sexual orientation, 12.8% by ethnicity, and .6% by disability bias (Hate Crime Statistics, 2010). While racially-motivated and disability-motivated crimes appear to have decreased, hate crime motivated by religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity has risen in the last year. Improvements in hate crime laws and punishments are necessary in order for these statistics to decrease.
Second I will look at Ilir Disha, James C. Cavendish, and Ryan D. King paper “Historical Events and Spaces of Hate: Hate Crimes against Arabs and Muslims in Post-9/11 America” .This research investigates variation in hate crimes offending against Arabs and Muslims across U.S. counties in the months before and after September 11, 2001. They tried answering these four questions. First, what were the determinants of anti-Arab and Muslim hate crimes prior to 9/11? Second, in what social contexts were Arabs and Muslims at greatest risk of victimization? Third, to what extent did hate crimes against these groups increase after the terrorist attacks? And last, did the predictors of hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims change appreciably after 9/11?
The rate of physical attacks on immigrants drastically increased in the USA and Canada after attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. According to FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, in 2001 the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes boosted almost to 500 which is an extensive and gigantic difference in comparison to pre-9/11 era.The murder of Yusor Abu-Salha, her husband Deah Barakat and her sister Razan Abu-Salha is an example of religiously-motivated hate crimes. The murderer posted anti-religion quotes and cartoons on his Facebook page which may lead to conclusion that hatred and prejudice towards religion, in this case Islam, is often a motive of murderers and violent attacks on immigrants. Anti-Muslim crimes make up about 13 percent of
Not all Muslims support violence and terrorism according to popular belief. In fact, encounteringislam.org states that 93% of Muslims do not support extremist views of terrorism. Due to constant repetition of a certain portrayal, the misconception of all Muslims supporting terrorism has definitely strengthened. Despite a certain few who fit the depiction, this delusion is noticeably wrong.
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 prejudice towards discrimination against Muslims due to their religion, or perceived religion, national, or ethnic identity associated with Islam because Muslims have different beliefs and values”. (Islamophobia wikipedia 1) Like anti-semitism, racism, and homophobia. Islamophobia describes mentality and actions that domain an entire class of people. Jews, African-Americans, and other populations throughout history have faced prejudice and discrimination. Islamophobia is simply another reincarnation of this bigotry. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary,a phobia is an exaggerated, usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation. It may be difficult to determine or communicate the source of this fear, but it exists. From this definition we can see how is so unfair to connect the word phobia to Islam specially because the word Islam in arabic means peace and safety. All that means that a lot of people don’t know nothings about Islam and the unknown can easily provoke fear.
In 2007, according to the Federal Bureau Investigation of the Nation’s law enforcement agencies “there were 9,535 victims of hate crimes; of these victims17.1 percent were victimized because of a bias against a religious belief which totaled to be 1,628 victims of an anti-religious hate crime” (1). Almost ten thousand people were victims of hate crimes alone in 2007. That is something to be alarmed about because part of living in the U.S.A as minority is to have freedom to do and be anything you want and yet we find that you really don’t have that freedom because you get attacked for practicing that freedom. The increasingly rate of hate crimes is soaring that many states like New York, New Jersey and California now have the highest
Since the incident of 9/11 occurred, many people have debated over the Muslim faith and its practices. Muslim extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS have affected the name of Islam causing majority of Muslims to be blamed. Recently, a tragic event that occurred in Paris killing over a hundred people left the people of France shaken with fear and anger. These events have lead to an increasing amount of hate and tension towards Muslims all over the world from protests at mosques, where Muslims go to pray, and anti-Muslim rally’s. Islamophobia is a massive issue that has steered European counties like France to enforce laws that ban religious garments that Muslims wear such as the niqab and burqa. Some people perceive these garments to be
Racism and racial prejudice, considered a relic of obsolete and outdated social systems, is emerging in the depths of ultra-modern Western societies with different characteristics from the past but with a surprising and worrying virulence. These waves of prejudice and racism testify to the many fears that fill the horizons of advanced societies, undermining not only their internal reliability, but also just their democratic settings. This paper presents a critical review of Islamophobia as a racial prejudice, showing that two main definitions are at work: Islamophobi a as xeno-racism or linked to the so-called clash of civilizations. Then, it presents the outcomes
She sat in silence as she listened to the politician’s speech only to hear disrespect to her nation. This caused her to take a stand to show support for her people, only to be kicked out of the event because of her religion. Currently, our nation is facing a crisis. Presidential hopeful Donald Trump is calling to ban all Muslims from coming to the United States. Hate crimes against Muslims are occurring all over the United States in response to the attacks carried out by religious extremists. Instead of providing asylum to Syrian refugees, the United States is repeating history by limiting the number of individuals fleeing barbaric violence. These actions encourage the general public to see Muslims as a collective group whom we should fear. In order to combat this, we must break down cultural barriers and
slamophobia is a very serious problem that negatively affects Muslims all around the world. Muslims should have the right to live freely without being a victim of racism or prejudice. People think that Islamophobia is affecting Muslims in non-Muslim countries only but Islamophobia is actually affecting Islamic countries as well. Islamic countries like Egypt are suffering from Islamophobia. Since that most foreign governments are Islamophobic so instead of helping us to become a developed country as it is the duty of every developed country to help other countries they are actually trying to keep us un-developed. Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,166 offenses reported by law enforcement in the US in 2012 Islam came in second with 12.8% this is according to the FBI.
Fifty million Muslims supporting terrorism – at least, under circumstances where they feel their religion is threatened – is a truly worrying number. It's not that there are 50 million terrorists to worry about; it's that the bloc of violence supporters and sympathizers will refuse to cooperate in rooting them out and preventing terror attacks.
The devout Muslims, who practice pure Islamic faith, are not affiliated with ISIS contradicting the reports from Western media. In the article Islam Is a Religion of Peace, the author, Manal Omar, talks about how Westerners have begun to label all Muslims as terrorists when that is not correct. “Those who claim Islam is an inherently violent religion ignore the overwhelming majority of adherents to the faith- there are more than 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide- who live peacefully” (Omar). In today’s society, Westerners generalize all Muslims to be affiliated with ISIS because that is the way media is portraying Muslims. Since media portrays Muslims
Muslims are invigorated by the FBI to report any suspicious activity, and that has led to some Muslims indeed acting as informants for the FBI. Although, the connection between Muslims and the FBI is forced. The FBI has positioned Muslims who decline to act as informants on the no-fly list, and the California FBI utilized community outreach plans to collect data about Muslims. Islamophobia is institutionalized in the FBI. In 2011, Wired Magazine’s Danger Room blog started publication of leaked documents from the FBI’s counterterrorism training program. The documents asserted that all Muslims are possible terrorists, called the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) a cult leader, and recommended Robert Spencer’s Onward Muslim Soldiers as a basis on
Many argue that there is an undeniable rise of Islamophobia in the West and that this irrational fear of Muslim people could be the precursor to mass persecution of Muslims similar to what the Jews had to endure in the twentieth centuries in Europe. Inspired by Adolf Hitler's distorted realities that Jews were the source of Europe economic downturn, the Nazis propagated anti-Semitism, ordered anti-Jewish boycotts, staged book burnings, and enacted anti-Jewish legislation. Today many Muslims living in the West feel unsafe due to the rise in attacks in places of worship, online threats of violence, police harassment, policies or legislation that disproportionately affect them, and media portrayal of them as sadistic and barbaric group of people. But does Islamophobia really exist? Or is the hatred and abuse of Muslims being exaggerated to silence the critics of Islam?