We have a huge intolerance problem in America today and it is only growing stronger with each piece of misleading propaganda. The Young Cons website has articles towards Muslims like an obsessed ex who won’t leave you alone. You can see pretty clearly they have a goal of directing your behavior to achieve a response (Pratkanis). Just to throw out a few examples one is titled, “Trump-Bashing Muslim Father at DNC Has Ties to Muslim Brotherhood.” Also one titled, “Muslim Olympian Bashes USA, Now Caught in Controversial Picture”. If you do any ounce of research you will see the damaging effect of this negative content. If you take a look on the F.B.I’s own website you find that hate crimes have gone up 67% in 2015. There were 1,223 hate crimes toward religious groups. 13.7% of the crimes were toward Muslims. This is higher than post 9/11 reports. And a total of 3,563 people were victims to religious hate crimes with 60% of them towards Jews. (FBI). Now, this is only 2015. From 2003 to 2015 there have been 4,120 reported Muslim targeted hate crimes reported, which includes 53 murders. This is only the reported hate crimes though. Hate crimes are actually sitting around 250,000 a year due to them not being reported with 19.7% towards religious groups (BJS). One recent terrifying incident happened where three extreme right wingers were caught plotting to blow up an entire Muslim neighborhood. Of course these white males aren’t labeled as terrorists; neither are any other extremist groups that aren’t of color. Conservatives even go as far to call the Black Lives Matter movement terrorists (Reilly). Sadly, we also see legislation against free speech because of this irrational fear and intolerance. In Georgia a lawmaker is trying to expand on a bill that banned people from wearing white hoods in response to the Ku Klux Klan to target Muslim woman. This would make it a misdemeanor offence to wear a hood ‘of any kind’. That would include hijabs and burqas (Hamze). If this isn’t a blow to our first amendment, then I don’t know what is. This is a big problem, and discrimination goes hand in hand. Weather at work, school, or even in public places Muslim women have been denied their right to free speech. Muslims have been banned from wearing the Hijab at school (ACLU), kicked out of malls (Cair), and even rejected access into public pools (ACLU)! The list is extensive and this is a real problem that needs addressing. The biggest problem that needs to be addressed is this propaganda playing right into the hands of ISIS. ISIS wants the western culture to label all Muslims as terrorists because it creates exactly what they want. It helps them recruit and makes the extremist lies more believable. ISIS wants the western culture to lash out towards peaceful Muslims. They want to ‘eliminate the gray zone’ trying to either make them leave the religion or join ISIS as their only protector (Hussain).
It almost feels like with Trump being elected we’ve sort of missed the boat when it comes to restoring the reputation of Muslims and bringing them out of the fire they have so rudely been thrown into. My solution is simple, but will require a lot of work. We will need to start a website that debunks myths and shows the real side of minority groups.
All of this work won’t be for nothing of course. The benefits will have remarkable outcome. People will be better informed about Muslims and what they contribute to America. For example, there are 20,000 plus Muslim physicians which accounts for 10% of all the physicians in the US (Pluralism). Let’s not forget what they contribute in terms of charity and nonprofit. Combined there are 1,271 Muslim charities and nonprofit organizations (Guidestar). One example is ZAKAT Foundation of America. They help poor people not only in America, but abroad. There missions are to, “Foster charitable giving to alleviate the immediate needs of poor communities and to establish long-term development projects that ensure individual and community growth” (Zakat).
Once people know more about who Muslims are and the amazing things they do for us, it will help bring the community together. People will have more respect for the Muslims and in turn be more likely to spark up a conversation and make new friends. People will live in peace knowing that the Muslims that can be so misinterpreted, actually are wonderful people with pure spirits. 94% of terror attacks from 1980 to 2005 weren’t even committed by Muslims (FBI). In fact, you are more likely to die from the sun than from any terrorist attack let alone from a Muslim’s related terrorist attack (CDC). It should be noted here that while terrorist groups profess relation to Islam, they are not in fact Muslim. We must distinguish this to help fight terrorism.
I believe that we can combat the propaganda perpetrated by the Young Cons and the alt-right. It will take a lot of hard work and motivation, but the end result will be well worth it. We will create a website that will flourish and show social media the truth about Muslims and what they truly stand for. The benefits of this are beautiful and will show America’s true colors, that is, all colors. Just like Martin Luther King Jr’s famous quote, “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” We need to apply this to everyone including our Muslim brothers and sisters.
References
ACLU. City of Omaha and ACLU of Nebraska announce settlement in lawsuit over Muslim woman barred from public pool. American Civil Liberties Union, 18 Feb. 2005.
“Council on American-Islamic relations – CAIR”
Fellows of Harvard, and Diana Eck. For many, their Muslim doctors are “the face of Islam.” 1997.
“Directory of Islamic charities and nonprofit organizations within religion – page 1.”
Design, Soire, and Zakat Foundation of America. Zakat foundation of America. 2016.
CDC. Heat-related deaths — United States, 1999–2003. CDC, 28 July 2006.
“Terrorism 2002/2005.” Federal Bureau of Investigation, 25 July 2016.
Hamze, Adam. “Georgia Bill Could Make Islamic Veils Illegal in Public (UPDATE).” The Huffington Post, 16 Nov. 2016.
Meagan Meuchel Wilson. Bureau of Justice Statistics. n.d.
Hussain, Murtaza. Islamic state’s goal: “Eliminating the Grayzone” of coexistence between Muslims and the west. The Intercept, 17 Nov. 2015
Pratkanis, Anthony R., and Elliot Aronson. Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion. New York: W.H.Freeman & Co, 2001. Print.
Reilly, Mollie. “Rush Limbaugh: Black Lives Matter Is A ‘terrorist group.’” Huffington Post. The Huffington Post, 8 July 2016
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