The United States ' 9 / 11 Attacks On The Middle East And Middle Eastern American Center Essay

American History has a lot of famous historical events. One of them would be the 9/11; which is a very memorable attack that happened years back. It is a very significant event in American history because it changed peoples point of view. Many people saved, lost, and risked their lives to save others. To this day the memorial for every person still stands and is remembered for every year and day.

Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Muslims everywhere began to be wrongfully persecuted and attacked. They have also since been denied equality in the workplace as “Americans with Muslim names have a harder time finding a job” and “American Muslims have experienced increased job discrimination since 2001” (Epstein 53). Without the ability to find a job, not only are Muslims effected in their daily lives, they are also unable to find a source of income, hindering them from supporting their families. Muslim religion can also cause further disturbances because there are several “law-abiding Muslims who are unfairly targeted and punished simply because they are Muslim” (qtd. in Epstein 52). This exemplifies the idea

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.

A 2006 Today/Gallup poll found that 44% of Americans had the perception that all Muslims were too extreme in their religious beliefs and 22% of the respondents would not want a Muslim as a neighbor. Islamophobia in America skyrocketed as a result of the 9/11 attacks and changed the way that Muslim-Americans and other Americans were able to interact with one another. These statistics show that there was significant fear of Muslims in the years after 9/11. In the years following the attacks, the number of hate crimes against Muslims in America spiked and have not dropped to pre-attack levels since. As Graph 1 shows, in 2001, there were a reported 481 hate crimes and majority of these would have occurred in the months following September. Although

In addition, the post 9/11 stigma has disturbed the American-Muslim mentally. In a brief report conducted by an American Psychologist,"Post 9/11: The Impact of Stigma for Muslim Americans," Saera Khan examines the communities experience. Khan conducted 12 studies on different populations and collected the data through her personal contacts outside the mosques, community centers and organizations. The survey involved 11 questions regarding how Americans view Muslims and Arabs. The data was collected between 2003 and 2006 after the two years of 9/11 incident. At that time there was a high wave of hatred towards Muslims in the American society. The type of questions which were asked were about how people were looking them after 9/11? Many of

Immediately affter 9/11, Muslim Americans were victims to more frequent hate crimes and bias incidents. According to the FBI (2002), hate crimes against Muslims rose 1,600 percent between the years of 2000 and 2001; going from 12 hate incidents in 2000 to 93 in 2001. A study conducted immediately after 9/11 showed that 40 percent of Americans felt that the attacks represented the “true teachings of Islam” and that between 2002 and 2003 the number of Americans that thought Islam promotes violence against non-Muslims rose by 14 percent (Panagopoulos, 2006). When Muslims themselves were surveyed, their feelings mirrored the findings in post 9/11 studies: 91 percent of Muslims surveyed believed that discrimination against Muslims in the United

Muslim immigrants have arrived to the United States of America from every nuke and corner of the sphere. The population is diverse in their own ways but each one of them bears similar reasons: Some desire to escape an old way of life, others to find a new one. Some wanted to escape violence, others the fetters of penury, or simple lack of opportunity. They have arrived with fervent hope, and often nothing more. The initial response received by them was largely varied. These new Americans found a vast new land hungry for their labor. But some, unfamiliar with these newcomers’ customs and religions, treated the new Americans as outsiders and believed they could never be real Americans. And with the events like the Gulf War and the World Trade Center bombing outpoured anti-Islamic sentiments in the 1990s. These sentiments intensified with the heinous and abominable attacks of September 11th. Muslims were being labeled as “extremists”, “jihadists”, “fanatics”, “fundamentalists” etc. They were being feared, discriminated and even harassed.

9/11 is known as one of the most tragic events in the history of the United States. Since World War II, America had proven its superiority and had become a progressive and powerful country. The occurrence of a terrorism group entering the country, breeching security and killing several thousands of Americans took a toll on almost everyone. Not only was the safety of the public questioned, the nation’s security legitimacy was as well. Since 9/11, many debates on American policy have been sparked. However, not only has this event had an impact on policy in America, it has had a severe impact on the public’s perception of Muslim American’s. It has been fourteen years since the attack in 2001 and Muslim Americans are still facing a terrible bias and being treated with disrespect. The American society has perceived Muslims into a single group that associates them all with terrorism (Bayraktaroglu). This is stereotype leads to a negative public perception.

since September 11th? How have they stayed the same? Because of the media’s portrayal of Arabs as “evil” and “a threat”, most Americans perceived them as such. The Muslim and Middle Eastern community did not have such attention before the incident. Most Americans had already seen Middle Easterners has a strange and dubious group for the customs and common, religious practices; but it only got worse following the attack. Since 9/11, people began to perpetuate the stereotype that “all Middle Easterners/Muslim Americans were terrorists” as well as “all Middle Easterners are Muslim” and the people were consistently scrutinized. These harmful assumptions has instilled a sense of apprehension in the Muslim community due to their fear of being publicly discriminated. In contrast, the attack was not widely approved by Middle Easterners and Muslim community; the community responded by saying that it had been orchestrated by extremists whose action did not represent the entirety of their

In contemporary American society Arab Americans are perceived as Muslim immigrants whose intentions are tied to terrorist groups, when in fact 35% of Muslim Americans are native born here in America, (Moule, 2012, p. 315). In addition, 60% convert to Islam later in life and only 40% are born Muslim, (Moule, 2012, p. 315). The misconstrued view of Arab and Muslim Americans began in part with the tragedy on September 11, 2001 when the Twin Towers collapsed. Following this event the media exploited the Islamic culture and anyone tied to it. Tragedy continued with the Iraq War in 2003, a civil war that continues to plague the country and its borders.

The unprecedented events of September 11, 2001 changed the way many Americans view American Muslims. The events brought Muslims into the national and international spotlight but with a new intensity. From the outside, the new intensity of the post-9/11 public pressures reinforced the already existing differences between the Western World and the Islamic World. This self and collective soul-searching raised many questions: How have American Muslims managed their identities as Muslims and Americans? How is American Muslim identities being articulated and received by non-Muslim Americans at numerous levels of society? To what extent are the processes that have to do with identity, giving way to a critical engagement of religious pluralism

Since the attack of the World Trade Center on September 11, media and society in the United States have distinguished Muslims as some sort of extremists and enemies. Because of this, there is a continuation of discrimination against Muslims which can be very concerning. The majority of Muslims have been living in fear of being judge or discriminated against because of their faith. These muslim are also facing the danger through violence and vandalism due to their appearance. As a result of the September 11 attack, the damage have been greatly exerted on Muslims as they have struggled to live in a society that appears to despise them.

The terrorist attack of 9/11 is one of the most devastating tragedies in the history of U.S. On the one hand, it filled American’s heart with an invariable amount of terror, but at the same time Arab Americans and Muslims were prejudicially challenged and discriminated at economic, social, and educational level. Up to a certain extent, America is a racially prejudiced country but that is just not limited to Arab American society. It includes Blacks, Italians, and Chinese with the addition of those who in near future will join this melting pot. Within the framework of expanding political institution and changing capitalistic economy, each racial and ethnic group has functioned its very own distinctive cultural and social patterns. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze the substantive influence of Arab American’s social identity, given shape by racial and religious factors, on their candidacy within a professional milieu.

The religion of Islam garners large amounts attention. Many believe it is a violent and backwards religion. Since 9/11, "Islamic reform" has become an all-purpose phrase: equally a western impulse to protect itself from Muslim violence and a humanist notion aimed at assisting voiceless Muslims (Eteraz1). Extreme displays of Islamic faith such as the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 have generated negative stereotypes about Islam as a religion. These stereotypes of violence and backwards thinking have been further perpetuated by even more recent examples of extremism by Muslim terrorists. Although most Muslims are peaceful and do not endorse the violence of their Muslim brethren, there are some who believe it is their

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).