The Fear Of Islamophobia In The United States

In the airports, Muslim people became “the usual suspects”, were thoroughly searched and often interrogated. In her article, O’Connor claims that the lives of American Muslims changed forever, and the statement is hard to disagree with (“How 9/11 Changed These Muslim Americans’ Lives Forever.”) Those who had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks, their children and grandchildren were sentenced to face racism, hate and violence.

September 11, 2001 (herein referred to as 9/11) was a day in American history, which will be remembered as the most horrific attack on American soil. This attack, carried out by nineteen Islamic extremists, was associated with al-Qaeda, and involved the hijacking of four airplanes. Two of those airplanes were hijacked and flown directly into the World Trade Center in New York City, New York. The third plane’s target was the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and the fourth plane was brought down in Pennsylvania where it is believed the passengers aboard fought the hijackers. This horrific day in history cost over 3,000 people their lives, and was labeled the worst attack on American soil since the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II.

After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001 the United States became a very different place. This drastic change was caused by the initial emotional reactions that American citizens, as well as government leaders had towards the tragic event. The government, in an effort to assure that these events never happen again passed the USA PATRIOT Act, which is an acronym that stands for the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. The major goal of this act is to combat terrorism by giving the government more leeway in what areas they are allowed to use their surveillance tools and also to what circumstances these tools can be used. The major issue that arise with this act are the fact that many of the act can be seen as unconstitutional.

Several weeks after the horrible terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act was rushed through Congress by Attorney General, John Ashcroft. This particular Act, however, was established with a ruling hand of fear. Life for Americans changed dramatically in those immediate days, weeks, and months after the attack. America had been spoiled with luxury for so long, that the illusion of control had ingrained itself into our very nature as Americans. That act of terror, on September 11, 2001, brought that belief crashing down, almost immediately. Fear and anger were rampant though out America; a dangerous

After the terrorist attacks on to New York City on September 11, 2001, there have been several adjustments to the legislature. Since, this tragic event had an impact on all citizens in this county, new agencies were created and policies at airports were changed as method of prevention for future terrorism incidents. As a consequence, the Congress passed the U.S. PATRIOT Act, which was established to increase airport security and prevent future deadly terrorist attacks. The acronym stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act” (Pitt, 2011, p. 54). Even though the PATRIOT Act was enacted for safety reasons, there have been various law suits claiming that innocent members of the Muslim population are being targeted. Pitt (2011) argued in his research that the fairness of this law is questionable, since there is a considerable amount of evidence proving that Muslims are vulnerable to be judged by their race and

On September 11, 2001, the Unites States suffered massive destruction caused by terrorism. Four planes were hijacked by terrorist. Nearly, three thousand lives were lost when two planes crashed into the World Trade Towers, one crashed into the Pentagon, and the final plane crashed in Pennsylvania before it could reach its final destination. An immense fear spread across the country and out of this fear came the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct the Terrorism, also known as the USA Patriot Act.

This paper will focus on the background, purpose, implementation, major criticisms, and current standing of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (hereafter referred to as the USA PATRIOT Act). The USA PATRIOT Act is currently one of the most controversial and divisive political doctrines that exist in modern day America supported and vexed by the entire political spectrum for various reasoning. Although in its inception it was met with staggering approval and support, over time skepticism and fear of an ever-increasing strain on civil rights

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.”

Many people can mostly likely recall learning about McCarthyism, the making of false accusations of treason without proof generally focusing on the topic of communism. However, over the years that fear of communism, also known as communism under the bed has mutated to an entirely different but similar beast, Muslim-under-the-bed paranoia. This paranoia expresses the large growing issue of intolerance against those who follow the religion of Islam. Over the years due to a series of unfortunate events the peaceful religion of Islam and its followers have faced discrimination, danger, and disrespect. Fifteen years, six months, and seventeen days ago a tragedy struck new york when four members of an Islamic terrorist group known as al-Qaeda flew a

September 11, 2001 was a milestone in the history of the United States, which experienced a collective shock and trauma that has never been forgotten. Not since the McCarthy era in the 1950s have there been such restrictions on civil liberties, including the protections of free speech and against unreasonable search and seizure in the First and Fourth Amendments. The entire airline and tourist industry was driven to the edge of bankruptcy and would not have survived at all without a major bailout by the federal government. After that time, the airlines decided that they could never permit another attack like this or they would be driven out of business. As it was, their stock prices collapsed and passenger schedules did not return to pre-September 11th levels for four years. All previous security plans were judged to be useless and inadequate, and were taken out of the hands of private security contractors and turned over to the federal government. New and more restrictive laws like the Patriot Act came into being, and the U.S. launched an all-out war on Al Qaeda that has continued for eleven long years, often using methods like torture that violated domestic and international law. Given the magnitude of the disaster and the collective trauma the country experienced, along with the fears of Al Qaeda obtaining weapons of mass destruction made these new restrictions inevitable, and nothing about them was surprising except that were not even more severe and repressive than they

Imagine being hated for your skin color or the way you worship God. Imagine that you live in a world where people persecute you for a crime that you did not commit. For many people, a life that we cannot even begin to fathom is their reality. Millions of believers of Islam and people of Middle Eastern origin are unjustly stereotyped, harassed, and killed over the belief that they are evil. Innocent men, women, and children are held to this type of prejudice in the United States for their faith being wrongly used by extremists. In America, we pride ourselves on being the “Land of Opportunity”, yet many Muslim-Americans are denied that very thing. The subliminal racism that we have towards Muslims because of these radicals prevents us from moving forward as a nation and as human beings. America’s embrace of Islamophobia is more prominent than ever and we need to stop it now.

September 11, 2001. 19 terrorists killed 2,976 people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Over 400 police officers and firefighters lost their lives trying to rescue people from the World Trade Center (Encyclopædia Britannica). The firefighters and police officers could only do so much to save the people. Senators and Representatives realized the incredible risk of future attacks and took action. The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (Encyclopædia Britannica), more commonly known as the Patriot Act, was their response. The Patriot Act gives more powers to law enforcement agencies for investigating and abating terrorist attacks (Encyclopædia

In this century we learned from our media and top 1% that Islam is violent, doesn’t support freedoms such as women, religious, and speech. It’s an enemy of all Christian nations and democracy in itself. Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is another radical group of Islam that was majority funded by the Sen. Hillary Clinton and CIA that gave illegal arms shipments to Libyan jihadist (war with unbelievers) (Source 2). We see it on our news stations every day with terror attacks, the war on ISIS, and In Paris ,France, they had a terror attack that slaughter and wounded hundreds of innocent civilians that were carrying peaceful civilian activity. Another terrorist attack happened on September, 11, 2011. It killed four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens. It was revealed that it was due to a YouTube video, even though it had no relations to it, and later on it was confirm a Terrorist attack during that election year. The media’s agenda help create the fear of Muslims call Islamophobia.

In his academic journal “The Relationship between the Muslim World and the United States and the Root of Islamophobia in America,” Imam Rauf argues that the resentment that American Muslims have towards the United States of America is not due to the values, beliefs, or business, but rather their support of a “strongman” regime that has ruled in an authoritarian manner over their population at home. Moreover, Rauf supports his claims about the sentiment expressed by Muslims with real life examples, such as drones that belong to the United States of America, which kill innocent Muslims (what we refer to as “collateral damage”). Subsequently, his purpose is to inform the audience that the same sentiment expressed by Muslims (in comparison to the

The United States, where the grass is greener and dreams are made comes a horror story that is racism and phobia, where justice cannot be judged because of the unlimited bias towards this subject. Our fathers who created this great nation have established a constitution which states the freedom of speech and religion, however recently it has been shown that freedom of religion is a term used freely until an issue has occurred to alienate the entirety of a culture. Some believe that all muslims are radical and cannot be reasoned with; however this is not true and the majority of muslims cause no more threat to the stability to the United States than other ethnicities.