Wajahat Ali’s opinions relate to the ideas about democratic political systems from Martin Lipset, through the concept of democracy requiring a supportive culture and acceptance by the citizenry to protect underlying freedom of speech, religion, and the right of opposition parties. According to Ali’s lecture, “President Donald Trump campaigned on a platform that instituted fear and hate amongst the Muslims living in the U.S. and abroad. The result, left millions of protesters to fight for individual equality and the fight against Islamophobia as a direct result of Trump’s dehumanizing travel ban against Muslims entering the United States” (Ali 2017). Ali stated that this was not only a ban on seven Middle Eastern countries, it was a ban targeting …show more content…
According to Ali, “the religious inequality in the U.S. is caused by ignorance, due to the fact that 60 -65% Americans do not know a Muslim. The only direct interaction they have had with Islam is through American media and pop culture. For instance, “Rage Boy” was a name given to create an image of the stereotypical radical Muslim, who has a long black beard, wears a robe, and throws his fist in the air screaming that the West has destroyed the image of Islam. Although the West has portrayed “Rage Boy” as the typical Muslim , many news outlets have interviewed Shakeel Ahmad Bhat, the man known as “Rage Boy” and have discovered that he is a friendly, shy individual, who speaks only for religious equality in America” (Ali 2017). Ali further discussed that the freedom of speech as provided in America, has an interesting way of working in today’s world. On the one hand it has a way of demonizing Muslims through war films and sitcoms, but on the other hand, it has a way of recognizing that Islam is not a threat and has only been depicted as such from right wing groups and white
blight on society rather than a useful addition. Abdul presents controversial ideas and themes such as the discrimination that Muslims face in everyday life, the ‘expectation’ all Muslims are extremist, and that they are seen by some as ‘less than
The author further mentions the potential threat that arises from the constant hatred posed on Muslims in America and vice versa. The youth have found themselves with their identity in attack and have been forced to political Islam so they can relate to it and feel they are part of something that unites themselves with other Muslims on a common
Muslims now, suffer from discrimination in America ever since the 9-11 Era. Some people believe that muslims were the reason why 9-11 and other terrorists attacks happened. The hate for American-Muslims has increased by 78%. Even our president, Donald Trump, wanted a ban on immigration by Muslims. The anti-Muslim hate and violence have reportedly increased rapidly after Donald Trump’s comments on the Muslims. Social media and the news for months
This outburst is fueled by the kind of rage that bell hooks describes in Killing Rage. hooks asserts that for white people, black rage “must always remain repressed, contained, trapped in the realm of the unspeakable” (Killing Rage 12). She critiques black psychiatrists William Grier and Price Cobbs, who wrote the book Black Rage and described such as a sign of powerlessness. hooks argues: “they did not urge the larger culture to see black rage as something other than sickness, to see it as a potentially healthy, potentially healing response to oppression and exploitation” (Killing Rage 12). Because black rage was seen as something that could get black bodies murdered, it was supposed to be contained and hidden. hooks’ view of rage as something vital for the well-being of black individuals is important in the context of Assata’s autobiography. At one point, Assata states that white people could never understand someone becoming a Black revolutionary because “they had so little to revolt against” (119). Later on, in thinking back to having grown up in a segregated south, she remarks: “If i sit and add up all the ‘colored’ toilets and drinking fountains in my life and all of the back-of-the-buses or the Jim Crow railway cars or the places i couldn’t go, it adds up to a one great ball of anger” (138). Writing, then, serves as a form of exorcism, a way to cleanse out the anger from the spirit by channeling it into a creative outlet. The book itself encompasses black rage from
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
Historically, the United States of America has a long history of shaping its ideology from a series of significant events that hold unspeakable brutality. This leads Americans to draw conclusions, which often leads to denouncing a particular body of people. For example, the enslavement of African Americans, the decimation of Native Americans, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Currently, while enduring several years in the U.S., Muslim Americans face similar difficulties as a human being would. However, these hardships differ because they include U.S. discrimination triggered by 9/11, current terrorist events, and negative reinforcement from the media and the general public. Muslim Americans experience the harmful effects of terrorism because acts of terrorism influence the way the U.S. views and thinks about Muslims.
In the preface and introduction of “Islam and America Building a Future without Prejudice”, author Anouar Majid discusses the history of conflicts and prejudices between America and Islam. In the preface, he says that he concludes his book by “calling for a critical reexamination of religion to open new paths for dialogue and rapprochement” (Majid, x). He goes on to argue that, “Only by demystifying our strongly held beliefs and prejudices can we see more clearly our common humanity and de-escalate the tensions that have torn us apart for so long” (Majid, x). He says that one would assume that this would be common sense to Westerners, but most tend to only pay attention to the extremists who commit awful crimes in the name of Islam, and Westerners
Though there is a seemingly massive amount of people who have just now come out with anti-Islam sentiments, it is clear that this is not really the case. Citing the radical policy suggestions and bans suggested by Donald Trump, there is also reference to American history and how the citizens of America are, unlike Europe and Asia, products of immigrants who chose to come to America (aside from slaves and Native Americans). Citing journalist Rose Wilder Lane in 1936, they take her quote that says Americans are “The most reckless and lawless of peoples…we are also the most imaginative, the most temperamental, the most infinitely varied” . The idea is not that American ethnocentrism is a product of immigrants establishing a hierarchy to benefit those that are in the majority. The report also provides a chart that encompasses attitudes of Muslims toward Americans and Americans toward Muslims (Figure 5) . From the chart we can see that Muslims have a significantly more negative view of Americans than Americans do of them, which again can be attributed to media attention and different international decisions that affect the world. Though the report it is obvious that there is a disconnect between those that agree with the discrimination of Muslims in society and those that oppose it. But from the report is seems rather clear that the rise is ISIS, the Presidential election, and the United States call for surveillance on Muslims have created a sense of distrust among those that
One of the many reasons for bigotry includes American media failing to represent Middle Easterners’ presence in the United States with equity. The weeks following 9/11 resulted in over 700 violent incidents against Middle Easterners, Muslims, and those who appeared to be (Awad 61). Tensions also may have been heightened before this time due to America’s role in Middle Eastern country, such as, “The Iranians had suffered under the Shah, who imprisoned people, tortured prisoners, encouraged booze and corruption, and tried to eliminate Islamic identity in his country, all with America’s blessings and weapons” (Kahf 119). Middle Easterners retaliations towards what they viewed as invading Americans created bad images for themselves in the United States, for this was all those in the US saw. This resulted in the thought of justified discrimination.
The documentary “A Child in Rage” gave me an indescribable feeling. The hardships and pain that this little girl had to go through was completely disgusting. Because of her father’s neglect, they made this little girls life a living hell.
A current cultural conflict taking place in America today is religious. Many Americans discriminate against the Islamic faith and there have been countless acts of mistreatment of Muslims in the work place, at school, in public, and in the media. Negative feelings and acts toward Muslims have become so prevalent that in 1991 the Runnymede Trust Report coined a term for it. The report defined the “unfounded hostility toward Muslims, and therefore fear or dislike of all or most Muslims” as “Islamophobia” (Defining “Islamophobia”). There has always been some religious cultural conflict with Muslims in the United States, but since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, conflict has escalated significantly.
For this paper, I have chosen to interview an acquaintance of mine who is a devote Muslim and follower of Islam. For the sake of this assignment I will be referring to him under the pseudonym of Jack. I spoke with Jack about some wide-ranging topics discussing things such as, media, bias, stereotypes, and really in general what being a follower of Islam is like in this divided country right now. In our country, today it’s pretty apparent there is a type of fear of Muslims, so much so that 7 heavy populated Muslim countries are not permitted from entering the United States of America. I never had conversations as personal as this with Jack and I feel as if I gained a lot of insight into the types of things minorities, and especially Muslims
"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
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).
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).