Stereotypes After 9/11

In this tedtalk, Melissa Boigon, who studies Islam and its relationship to the Arab-Israeli conflict, talks about how Islamophobia has become more of a fear of Arabs over the last 10 years. She thinks that has to do with the connotation to terrorists groups such as Al-Qaeda, and the way middle east conflict is portrayed in The United States today. She also discusses how American Entertainment portrays Arabs, saying that it's propaganda in the form of entertainment.

9/11. What was once a simple date that turned into a horrific day in 2001. “On September 11, 2001, at 8:45 a.m. on a clear Tuesday morning, an American Airlines Boeing 767 loaded with 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The impact left a gaping, burning hole near the 80th floor of the 110 story skyscraper, instantly killing hundreds of people and trapping hundreds more in higher floors” (history.com, 2010). The attacks were from the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda. After 9/11 we went into a chaotic security mode and honestly were upset and scared of Muslim people. Non-Muslim Americans were so upset and angry at another religion that

During the years of post-9/11, Americans have started to become wary of non-Americans in their home land of the fear of another terrorist attacks. The 9/11 attacks have changed American views on the muslims and on the Middle East. It also had made security regulation more strict and discriminatory. Since post-9/11, Americans the wrong impression of the Middle East and have negative views of it and also have stereotype of it as well.

The attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001 changed the way Americans reacted towards people of Middle Eastern descent. A fear and bitterness settled in the American people that has been passed onto each generation. Americans now have an unease regarding immigrants of copper complexions. Government attitudes have changed as a result deeming it necessary to limit immigration, heighten security in airports, and stereotype a whole race of people igniting worldwide panic. Fear in America after 9/11 has not ceased to exist, influencing every aspect of American life that it can.

Today one does not even have to wait for a movie to be released. Simply click the “ON” button on a remote and suddenly, thousands of news and television shows are available for one to enjoy. Muslims are also the target of prejudice in these news broadcasts and programs. One such television program released was a drama titled “24.” Issues and Controversies reports: “The show, which deals with a counterterrorism unit based in Los Angeles, featured a group of Muslim terrorist characters who were plotting to detonate nuclear weapons in the U.S. At the end of one episode, the terrorists successfully detonated a small bomb in a Los Angeles suburb, killing about 12,000 people” (“Race and Ethnicity in Entertainment”). This fictional show wrongly spreads the stereotypical image of Muslims and their clichéd image of the fundamentalists on 9/11. By adding the title and image of “Muslim” to the phrase “terrorist” the program wrongly advertised that potentially every Muslim could be a terrorist. This stereotypical image is similarly expressed in news broadcasts through the use of terrorism news. By increasingly using terrorism and Muslims in top

The topic of this essay was one that seemed the most relevant at this given moment in time. Post 9/11, Western media became very critical of Islam and the portrayal of Muslims and the negative associations made with them has dramatically increased.

After several incidents that happened around the world, peoples view on Arabs changed. The media played a big role in “the stereotyping of Arabs”. It is one of the main reasons for people to think the way they are about Arabs. Many

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.”

am a fourteen year old Muslim girl, born and raised in America. As a teenager, I watch a lot television. Whether I’m watching cartoons with my siblings, scary movies with my friends, or the news with my mom, I love watching television. One thing I have noticed on television is that the media’s coverage on Islam has changed significantly in various ways this past decade. The way the news portrays Muslims has shifted and the image of Islam has become distorted. The amount of coverage on Islam has increased as well, especially since the events of September 11th 2001. Those events played a role in why the coverage of Islam changed dramatically in the media. I also believe that the media is biased against Muslims, therefore many stereotypes and misinterpretations about Islam were created and spread. Some of these misinterpretations include Islam as a violent religion and oppression of Muslim women. I think that the media degrades and dehumanizes Muslims. Whether it is intentional or unintentional, I do not believe that the media portrays Islam accurately.

Hollywood adapts, validates, and creates such crude representations of the Islamic world. That has been its primary concern and its sole perspective regarding the Arab other. Such dehumanization used to be merely cultural and biased. In fact, such injustices have always existed both in Hollywood and in other film industries around the world especially by the French and the British. Modern and present day representations, however, are driven by greater motifs and are chiefly political. Following the 9/11 attacks, the demonization of Islam and Arabs has gone wild. The images the media propagated and continues to spread are full of both implicit and explicit messages to trigger hate and anger against the Muslim world and to justify the new burden

The majority of muslims follow a peaceful and loving religion which makes the broad range is discrimination towards them immoral and unjustifiable. Although i began with biases against islamophobia, with further research i understand why there is a fear of the muslim religion but i still stand with my viewpoint that it is not morally right to discriminate against an entire community due to the actions done by extremist.Efforts are being done in order to end both racism and islamophobia. For example in North Carolina The Movement to end racism and islamophobia is a team of christians and muslims who tell their stories of how they have achieved religious tolerance. I would like to further research the effect the media has had on societies views

Syed Soharwardy asserts that “Media always tried to portray Islam as a religion of terror and all the Muslims as terrorists. The way the talk-show programs and news are produced and presented, it seems that the media has already decided the guilty verdict, regardless what would be the outcome of an investigation” (Soharwardy). So too do members of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee recognize the media’s predisposition toward bias, as is pointed out in this statement, found on their website: “Key industries of American mass culture, Holllywood and television, for decades have been bastions of anti-Arab stereotyping, and have consistently resisted positive or realistic representations of Arabs and Arab Americans. (Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee).”

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).

"The US media has been clubbing together terrorism and Islam, influencing the American public to think that all Arab Muslims are "crazy and violent terrorists"… The American media has been a primary agent responsible for creating racist stereotypes, images and

This survey reveals that the problem with the Islam faith is not racial: The Muslim people are welcomed, the Islam faith is not. The violence that has been perpetrated against America, whether executed or planned, has brought to fruition religious persecution not seen since the persecution of the Jews in W.W.II. This “trust no Arab” attitude has brought shame to the Constitutional intentions of freedom of religion intended by our forefathers, and has set religious tolerance back 200 years. Looking at media representation of Muslim Americans prior to 9-11, it shows religious diversity in America, depicting Muslim America as just another religious community seeking to advance and protect their interests, not unlike other Americans. After 9-11 the media portrayed representations of threat and fear, creating boundaries between Muslims and other Americans. Such depiction transforms the identity of Muslims and American religious pluralism (Byng, M. pg. 3).