Stereotypical Judgement Essay

There is not one person on this planet that has not, at one point in their life, been judged unfairly; and even though many of us want to believe that we don't, we, personally, do our own fair share of judging others just as unfairly.

These prejudgments are not new, but in today’s world Muslims are not only the ‘others’ to the West (Europeans and North Americans)

Americans fear that the terrorists would some days attack their country, and kill them. This fear is vastly increased after the 2001 attack in New York City. Since then, most Muslims in America have been investigated by spying their phone talks, screening their profiles and so on . Although everybody knows that Muslim extremists are the only cause, they tend to relate it to all other innocent Muslims and discriminate them. It is not only affected Muslim adults but also their kids. They wanted to quit from schools because they were consistently called murderers. Worse than this, they received violent acts such as kicking, bullying just because they are born Muslims. The racism today is obviously shown in President Donald Trump’s traveling ban on seven Muslim countries which is later changed to six by excluding Iraq. It prevents all Muslims from these countries to travel to the US (Henderson & Graham). Even though the President wants to strengthen the security and makes Americans safe, the ban do affect thousands Muslims who do not involve in terrorism, and shows the discrimination against this

need to be realistic and think logical on what the government is really telling us. Since the 9/11 attack most Americans have the mentality of all or most Muslims or Muslim American may be some form of threat, and that is so wrong. Just like most “white” folks believe all or most black men are thugs and that is being judgmental, discrimination and prejudice. I was very judgmental but as I have grown, I then came to the realization that looks are deceiving and we can’t always judge a book by its cover. For instance, when people first meet me it may be a little over whelming due to my overly blunt personality then realized how sweet, jovial and kind hearted person I am. On that note it is not good to judge and not everyone is the same, so let’s not let one bad apple spoil the bunch. The Islamic religion can be viewed as detrimental to society because it promotes strong violent and terrorist acts against themselves and others.

Imagine walking the same streets as a “sketchy” black man on a dark night, what do you do? Do you cross the street in hopes of avoiding the bulky man’s domineering demeanor? What about when you see a Muslim man walking the street, fully clothed in a thawb? Do you think that he may be the next terrorist to wreak havoc on America? Many Americans’ perception of people unlike themselves has been distorted by the stereotypes against diverse ethnicities and by the discrimination against specific religions. Muslims, among many other groups of people, have been targeted by everyday people because of the actions of people that are of the same race or religion as them.

Ever since the 9-11 attack in America, the majority of Americans have been assuming that all of the Muslim citizens are terrorists as well and have a keen eye on everything they do. They are assuming that all Muslims are either part of the Al- Qaeda or ISIS terrorist groups. For example, Mr. Bhanjee, their lawyer, claims that “Arman, Sami’s father, is a loyal American. A lot of time and energy’s gone into making [him] look like a terrorist” (Stratton 172-173). As the setting is in America, people are ready to make assumptions about who is a

Prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001 most Americans knew very little to nothing about Muslims nor had an opinions towards them. The lack of knowledge quickly changed due to a combination of factors. Terrorist attacks against America have unfortunately persisted for years, the attacks of 9/11 were fundamentally different. Such attacks evoke a response and the response has evolved and transformed Americans attitude. Non-economic factors, such as prejudicial stereotypes, place a significant role in shaping intergroup relations and in influencing public attitudes. Negative treatment of Muslim Americans in the United States after 9/11 was not caused by the 9/11 attacks alone, but by pre existing social constructions that configured them as

American Muslims are having their civil rights violated more and more and are constantly being discriminated against. Haddad says that “Post 9/11 American Muslims were linked to enemy others and were expected to prove their loyalty to the nation-state in ways other Americans were not expected to do. The trope of Muslims as enemies within lingers.” The national media still portrays American Muslims as enemies to the United States. These unquestioned beliefs about Muslims leads to Islamophobia and Said says “To most Americans, Islam is nothing but trouble. The use of the label Islam, to either explain or indiscriminately condemn Islam, becomes a form of attack.” Said goes on to say that “Islam is used to define a small portion of extremism instead of the billion Muslims

9/11 also resulted in racial stereotyping, which is the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed an offense. Racial stereotypes are automatic and exaggerated mental pictures that we hold about all members of a particular racial group. The post 9/11 feeling of fear and paranoia greatly contributed to an increase in anti-Muslim sentiments through the generalizations that one extremist religious group can be applied to an entire widespread culture of people. These conclusions left the people of America in fear of an event similar to 9/11 happening again, and anger and constant paranoia transgressed into the lives of Americans and their interactions with other people. A dramatic increase in hate crimes towards Muslim people and in TSA racial profiling show how real fear, anger, and paranoia are in our society. People live in complete fear of an entire race, when only a very small part of the Muslim race believed in the

Throughout my life I have been witnessing hate crimes, but it may not have been in person but utmost certainly in the news. The news channel portrays us Muslims way wrong. In the news when Muslims do something wrong they are automatically named terrorist while when someone American does something they are called mentally ill. While investigating this broader topic, this made me think even deeper. What was the cause of this? Why are do certain people act like this? Why do people show us hatred? Many of these questions are being popped into my head, ever since I have been researching my topic. What surprises me the most that most people think all Muslims are

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.

Even from a young age, I remember hearing discriminative stereotypes. A common one I remember hearing was that all blondes were stupid. Knowing that there were many blonde people that were in fact very intelligent, I knew this was a false generalization. It appears though that times really haven’t changed that much from my transition from childhood into adulthood. After observing the 2016 Presidential Campaign, it is obvious that these generalizations of groups of people are alive and in the midst of our world today. The stereotype that is being brought into light is by the current presidential candidate, Donald Trump. Quoted in an article that was written on World News Digest, Trump stated, ‘“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad and have no sense of reason or respect for human life (referring to Muslims)”’ (Holland and Stephenson). To begin, Trump mocks the Islam religion for believing in Jihad. And second, Trump is suggesting we put a hold on allowing Muslim immigrants from entering our country, because he does not want any more terrorist attacks. So if he is banning all Muslims, does this mean all Muslims are terrorists? This giant generalization made by Trump has been the hot buzz not only in America, but in other

Viewing Arabs and Muslims as evil and threatening people began long before the terrorist attacks on September 11 (Akram, pg 61.) It can be traced back to myths created by film and media. Individuals of Middle Eastern descent were often the villains in older American films and have been consistently misrepresented for many years. There have also been multiple government laws and policies dating back to the 1970s that have “steadily targeted Arab and Muslim non-citizens for selective interrogation, detention, harassment, presumption of terrorist involvement, and removal from this country” (Akram, 61).

This author, Lillian Rida, made very good points. If I was a Muslim, I would feel as if Americans or etc. would be discriminating towards me just because of the way I looked or what I believed in. Does America’s paradigm of other cultures and religions need to change? Yes, many people need to change their paradigm. Many Americans take it to ease to discriminate or segregate people that are different or have a bad background, we think that that certain person or people will never change and will never be “like”

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).