Stereotyping of Muslims in America After 9/11 Essay Example
Thought Paper
Stereotyping of Muslims in America after 9/11
8/1/2007
Imagine this perfectly normal scenario. You are taking a trip to fly abroad or within your home country. What does it entail for you? Packing, reaching the airport on time, getting through the regular security lines and boarding your flight of destination. For me, it’s quite different. I arrive at the airport earlier than most others so that I can avoid the extra screening security checks I get. They call it random security checks but I am always chosen at every screening. I make sure I have no jewelry or metal on me so the buzzer at the security post doesn’t go off but nevertheless I get pulled aside to be screened personally. In one instance I was detained at the airport for over 10 hours because I flew in from a Middle Eastern country. I have lost count of the number of times airport officials carry name checks on me when I hand them my travel documents, just because I have a common Muslim last name. Neither can I recall how many times my luggage has been scrutinized both via machines and manually. I feel that being a Muslim in the United States is a liability. My paper discusses the common stereotype of Muslims and people with a Middle Eastern background in the US, the role media plays in developing this stereotype and what its consequences are, how stereotyping and racial profiling lead to racial prejudice. The common stereotype of Muslims and people with a Middle Eastern background in America is that of oil exporters and/or potential terrorists. Muslim men are usually viewed as violent and their women as submissive. The media which is at the forefront of creating such negative stereotypes often uses the word Arab (an individual from the Middle East) interchangeably with the word Muslim so much so that Arabs and Muslim Americans are both victims of prejudice and racial profiling in America. An internet source (http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/Arabs.html) describes how such
Stereotyping of Muslims in America after 9/11
8/1/2007
Imagine this perfectly normal scenario. You are taking a trip to fly abroad or within your home country. What does it entail for you? Packing, reaching the airport on time, getting through the regular security lines and boarding your flight of destination. For me, it’s quite different. I arrive at the airport earlier than most others so that I can avoid the extra screening security checks I get. They call it random security checks but I am always chosen at every screening. I make sure I have no jewelry or metal on me so the buzzer at the security post doesn’t go off but nevertheless I get pulled aside to be screened personally. In one instance I was detained at the airport for over 10 hours because I flew in from a Middle Eastern country. I have lost count of the number of times airport officials carry name checks on me when I hand them my travel documents, just because I have a common Muslim last name. Neither can I recall how many times my luggage has been scrutinized both via machines and manually. I feel that being a Muslim in the United States is a liability. My paper discusses the common stereotype of Muslims and people with a Middle Eastern background in the US, the role media plays in developing this stereotype and what its consequences are, how stereotyping and racial profiling lead to racial prejudice. The common stereotype of Muslims and people with a Middle Eastern background in America is that of oil exporters and/or potential terrorists. Muslim men are usually viewed as violent and their women as submissive. The media which is at the forefront of creating such negative stereotypes often uses the word Arab (an individual from the Middle East) interchangeably with the word Muslim so much so that Arabs and Muslim Americans are both victims of prejudice and racial profiling in America. An internet source (http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/Arabs.html) describes how such