Muslims In America Essays Example

On September 11, 2001, al Qaeda, an extremist Islamist organization, committed the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S history. No one in the world will ever forget that dark moment when two passenger planes, cutting through the blue sky, crashed into the iconic twin towers of the World Trade Center, leading them to collapse to the ground. In the aftermath of this tragedy, anti-Muslim sentiments and fear have grown significantly within the United States. In fact, while innocent Muslim-Americans are being subjected to discrimination at the hands of a section of American society, the notorious terrorists who actually committed the crime got away. In an article titled Young Muslim Americans Are Feeling The Strain of Suspicion, Kirk Semple says that many innocent Muslim-Americans “feel isolated and alienated” due to the complexities and pressure from American society after 9/11 (Semple 2). The recent terrorist attacks by the Islamic State or ISIS in France and Belgium have brought U.S citizens’ fear and hatred toward Muslim Americans to an unprecedented level. It is important to address the sufferings of the Muslim-American community because their voices are often left unheard in conversations on how to protect America from future terrorist attacks.
Before looking into the discriminations against Muslim Americans, it is important to figure out what indeed created the hatred against this group of people. Firstly, stereotyping and grotesque generalizations are one of the main causes of this bias. People in the United States tend to believe that all Muslims, including Muslim-Americans, are the same as terrorists, regarding all Muslims as violent and hateful people. While it is a fact that the 9/11 terrorist attack was the handiwork of a small group of people from a Muslim country, many U.S. citizens still insist on attributing the fault to every single individual who believes in Islam. According to a poll conducted by The Economist, a majority of Americans think that Islam is more likely than other religions to facilitate violence. It is ridiculous to view all Muslims, who contribute 25% of the world population (or approximately 1.6 billion people), in the same light as al Qaeda terrorists (25,000 people) (Wikipedia). The reason behind this unreasonable belief leads to the second cause of the discrimination against Muslim Americans: lack of access to Muslims.
Many American citizens have absolutely no idea of the Muslim faith and the source of their hatred stems from preconceived notions and biases. People usually gather their ideas about a particular religion or community through movies, the arts and other types of media. Unfortunately, the same media depicts Muslims based on a myth that “can be traced back to Colonial times” (Rana 172). The media portrays Muslim men suppressing women with the power of Islam. Anniqua Rana, author of On Being a Muslim Woman, reacted strongly to assumptions that people made about Muslims based on what they heard/saw in the media. She says, the perception of Muslims in American media “is a myth! Not reality It is important to demystify this myth and modify this perception to reflect the multiple realities that exist” For example, many U.S. citizens assume that the hijab is a symbol of suppression of Muslim women. But, in fact, “educated and independent Muslim women are choosing to wear the hijab as a way of asserting their identity as Muslims.” These, and many more similar instances of misunderstanding, eventually help create a wrong impression of Muslims.
In such a caustic environment filled with negative biases against Islam in general, suppressing Muslim-Americans becomes an easy option. When thinking of their own safety, U.S. citizens often ignore the fact that Muslim-Americans are, in fact, innocent and already suffering from discrimination. Selfishness and a lack of sympathy allows for the occurrence and persistence of discriminations against Muslim-Americans, at school (affecting young Muslim students) and at work places (affecting innocent Muslim workers).
Discrimination against young Muslim-Americans is so pervasive in schools that if a student never suffers from it, s/he should be considered lucky. Most teenagers suffering from bias are either too young to remember 9/11 or were born after the terrorist attacks; yet they are still being called ‘terrorists’. In her article, Semple provides a glimpse of a stark reality of American society. Hebh Jamal, a young Muslim woman who was only a year old when 9/11 happened, currently suffers from hatred both in and out of school. “Instead of occupying herself with a teenager’s normal concerns, like homework, clothes and hanging out with friends Jamal has had to contend with growing anti-Muslim sentiment, adjusting her routines to avoid attacks and worrying about how she appears to the rest of society” (Semple). Muslim teenagers are subjected to an abnormal amount of pressure in school. They cannot befriend non-Muslim students because everyone has an impression that Muslims are ‘terrorists’, hence ‘dangerous’; they cannot study in school after class because other students make fun of them or bully them; they cannot even pray whenever they want to because they are very likely to be interrupted. Under such circumstances, the last resort these hapless students have is to approach their teachers for help. However, more often than not, the results are disappointing.
Rana, in her essay about Muslim women, talks about a rather horrifying experience that a young Muslim student called Laila had at her school in San Francisco: “Her father is bin Laden! She is going to blow up the school She has a bomb under her sweater!” shouted a student to Laila (Rana 170). Pained and upset about the entire episode, Laila could only rely on her teacher for help. However, when she mentioned the harassment to her teacher, “the teacher was not merely indifferent”, but also warned Laila not to make “a deal out of it.” When Laila told the teacher that her reaction was unfair, the teacher commented that: your people “had caused a lot of problems in the world, and that you should understand if people were frustrated with [you]”. Clearly, both students and teachers only care about their personal feelings and safety. They express their fear and hatred toward people who are weaker than them, often overlooking the frustrations that are brought to the victims. Unlike the students and teachers who can let off their steam by abusing the weak, Muslim-American teenagers have no way to seek justice, silently suffering from the conjugated violence at school.
Muslim-American teenagers at school are not the only ones suffering from blatant discrimination. Increasingly, adult Muslim-Americans are being subjected to prejudice, inequality and personal abuse at various levels in their workplaces. While normal adults worry about their workload, salaries and future career, Muslim-American workers have to worry more about their reputation and social status. ‘Terrorist’ or ‘Osama’ are just some of the names they are called at work. Imagine a scenario where you behave in an extremely professional manner with your supervisor or co-worker, but in return get called ‘al Qaeda’ or ‘Taliban’ by them. How stressed out and disappointed would you be? In his New York Times article, Greenhouse spoke of an incident that a Muslim truck driver named Mohammad Kaleemuddin experienced during work. “It was very rough Why are they doing this? I’ve always been nice to them”, Mohammad said after being called a ‘terrorist’ by his supervisor and several co-workers (Greenhouse). Sadly, Kaleemuddin was fired after protesting to the management about the discrimination and ethnic slurs he suffered at the hands of his coworkers.
In addition to verbal abuse, people in the United States also interfere with Muslim-American workers’ practice of their religion. Limited accommodation is made available for Muslims and, worse yet, many Muslim-Americans are asked to forgo some of their religious practices like wearing a hijab or taking prayer breaks. For instance, Swift, a well-known meatpacking company, interrupted prayer breaks for Muslim-American, refused to move Muslim workers’ meal breaks to right after sundown during the holy month of Ramadan, and even fired all employees who protested. Unfortunately, discriminations like these occur not just in small companies but also in giant international corporations like Disney. Imane Boudlal, a hostess at Disneyland in California, was asked to remove her hijab at work. She believed that the company “wanted to hide the fact that [she] looked Muslim (GreenHouse).
While the above-mentioned examples are nothing short of unacceptable, there are other Muslim-Americans who have faced even graver situations. Many don't get a job in the first place simply because they wear hijabs. In addition, there are thousands more cases of discrimination meted out to Muslims which occur annually, but only a few incidents make it to the public domain, simply because Muslim workers can easily be fired at their supervisors’ will if they protest. Most of us don't notice these prejudice at work and some of us might even be guilty of discriminating against Muslims.
Of course, one might expect the discrimination Muslims face today to be less severe when compared to the period right after 9/11. However, facts tell a different story altogether. Many polls “have shown that many Americans feel a growing wariness toward Muslims” and, indeed, the complaints of discrimination by Muslims today exceeds even the amount filled the year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There were 803 claims about discrimination in 2009, which “was up 20 percent from the previous year and up nearly 60 percent from 2005” (Greenhouse).
The growing hatred against Muslim Americans over the years and the indifference people in the United States have about American-Muslims’ predicament can only be resolved by guaranteeing American citizens’ safety while eliminating prejudice against Muslim with the same urgency. A few months ago, Donald J. Trump, the Republican frontrunner of the U.S. presidential race, presented a simple but relentless solution: “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” (Trump). His statement created more pressure on Muslim-Americans and generated greater tension between Muslim and non-Muslim American. In the midst of all this political incorrectness and charged up environment, ISIS, which has emerged to be even more influential and organized than al Qaeda, announced future terrorist attacks in Washington, D.C. Trump’s solution would predictably make things worse for an already burdened Muslim-American community.
Instead of turning our friends into enemies, we should unite all Americans regardless of race or religion. We don't want tragedies like 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing to happen again. Educating Americans about Muslims, their faith and culture is of utmost importance. Many Americans only know that ISIS is bad and that its members are Muslims. As such, they believe all Muslims are potentially dangerous without any actual knowledge of Muslims. Therefore, information about Muslims and ISIS should be provided to help people see the fundamental differences between the terrorists’ ideology and innocent Muslim-Americans. Externally, ISIS is gaining power and profiting from the hapless people caught in their path, simply because those people have no other government or military to rely on. Therefore, the U.S. government can help create a local government to oppose ISIS’ influence and to counteract it.
Today, thousands of Muslim-Americans across generations are suffering from discrimination and inequality. Unfortunately, most of their disappointing experiences and feelings are hidden from the public. Along with Islamist terrorist attacks around the world and Trump’s explosive statement against Muslims, Muslim-Americans’ social status can only worsen, with discriminations becoming more severe. If we keep suppressing innocent Muslims, who are already beautifully integrated into American society, it will be hard to imagine what the future holds for them. Thus, if one day you see your Muslim neighbor throwing a bomb at your garden, remember that s/he did not commit the act willingly, but because we forced them to do so.