E-PORTFOLIO PROJECT ISLAMPHOBIA & DISCRIMINATION TOWARDS MUSLIMS BY ALI RAHIMI

AFGHANISTAN TO AMERICA Dear Reader, Before you start the presentation, I just want to share some of my personal experiences that have impacted me as an individual, and also as a Muslim growing up in the United States. My name is Ali, and I am an Afghan American from Kabul, Afghanistan. I moved over to the United States when I was only five years old. At the time, I had no idea what America was or had any perspective of western societies. As you can imagine, this was a complete culture shock for me and my family. We moved to America with the same purpose of many other immigrants, which was to start a new life. Prior to 9/11, I didn’t sense or get much discrimination at the time, but maybe I just didn’t notice it as much. When 9/11 happened everything just started to change. I started to get a sense of people making fun of me and calling me names, I would start to hear people at school and in public, call me “Osama”, “terrorist”, “towel head”, the list goes on. The more and more America got into these wars with the Middle East, the more discrimination I faced at school, in public, and just around my neighborhood. Parents of kids that I hung out with were hesitant about letting me stay over or letting their kids come over to my house. I started to get in fights when I got a little older because of all the people calling me racial slurs and cursing threats towards my family. I got in trouble for it a lot, but besides school, I felt discrimination from cops and authorities. They just looked at me like I was a problem, I couldn’t even debate or argue against them because it would just make me look bad or end up in a heated exchange. I learned my lesson to avoid people who are looking to antagonize me, I become more aware about my surroundings in case somebody there was being prejudice to me. I had to learn to ignore discrimination from the public, because it never did me any benefit to confront them. As I got older, realized I wasn’t the only one that this happens too. I found out that my experiences were similar to other people. That discrimination, racism, and hate is universal in America. This is not only a problem for Muslims, but an issue for all those who have to face discrimination and hate for being who they are.

WHAT IS ISLAM(PHOBIA)? I want to define some key words before getting in depth with my research and study. Islamophobia: “Hatred or fear of Muslims or of their politics or culture.” (Dictionary.com) According to the University of California, Berkeley: “Islamophobia is a contrived fear or prejudice fomented by the existing Eurocentric and Orientalist global power structure. It is directed at a perceived or real Muslim threat through the maintenance and extension of existing disparities in economic, political, social and cultural relations, while rationalizing the necessity to deploy violence as a tool to achieve "civilizational rehab" of the target communities (Muslim or otherwise). Islamophobia reintroduces and reaffirms a global racial structure through which resource distribution disparities are maintained and extended.” In case you don’t know who Muslims are or what Islam is? o “The religion of the Muslims, a monotheistic faith regarded as revealed through Muhammad as the Prophet of Allah.” (Oxford) Discrimination: “The practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people.” (Merriam-Webster)

YOU FEAR WHAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. I believe discrimination and fear go hand & hand. People who are prejudice towards something normally don’t understand what they’re prejudice against. If we don’t understand something, we mostly like will also fear it. Most Americans opinions on Muslims are formulated by the media. If you keep up with our modern day media stations, you would notice some bias reporting, inaccurate and false information, and propaganda promotion. People only see the extremist Muslim killing or beheading Americans as their interpretation of what Muslims believe and do. The truth is that every religion and culture has an extremist that will make the rest look bad, but that doesn’t mean we go out and judge a group by the actions of the a few individuals. Instead we need to educate ourselves on others before we make judgments.

HOW DOES WESTERN SOCIETIES FEEL ABOUT MUSLIMS? Gallup did an extensive research and study on Islamophobia. Their research states that, Islamophobia has existed in the past, while having an increase after 9/11. They found an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is “perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from social, political, and civic life.”(Gallup) By gathering more information from the whole world they found out that it’s more than just Muslim Americans that face discrimination and prejudice, but Muslims in another countries face similar situations. They survey question asked, “Do you believe Western societies respect Muslim societies, or do you believe Western societies do not respect Muslim societies?”

DISCRIMINATION IN THE WORKPLACE An article written by the New York Times centers around Muslims in America are being discriminated in the workplace by employers. From harassing them for wearing hijab, to taking prayer breaks, and being called racial slurs like, “Terrorist” and “Osama”. The article talks about the increase of complaints filed by Muslims in 2009 which was an all time high at 803 claims. The article highlights individual people and cases were they were discriminate in their workplace for being Muslim and even turned down jobs because of the way they look. According to a 2008 Civil Rights Report by CAIR.com Muslims had a 34% increase in employment discrimination reports in % increase in denied religious accommodations in 2008.

ISLAMOPHOBIA: MAKING MUSLIMS THE ENEMY I had a chance to read Islamophobia by Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg. The book written about the prejudice of Muslims, stereotypes of Islam, and anxiety of islamophobia. The book shows cartoons that dehumanize Muslims and provides insight on how the propaganda of making Muslims the enemy started. The book also does a good job of addressing the different types of Muslims and how the religion isn’t just centered in Saudi Arabia. It provides context and information about Muslims from a different lens, we can see how the media makes America look like the heroes, while portraying Middle Eastern Muslims as the bad guys. Overall the book held some good information about he misconceptions the general public has about the religion of Islam. They distinguish between the extreme terrorist group people fear and the average Muslims who are just like everybody else. This book connects with my report because it provides some clarity and context on Islamophobia. The book shows off the mindset of western civilians and why they see Muslims the way they do.

CONCLUSION Discrimination is an issue that is deeply rooted within our country. Muslims are not the only ones that face it. This report only brings out the information on one group of people that has been targeted for their beliefs, culture and ethnicity. We face discrimination in every form and in every day. You may not see it or feel like your being discriminated, but somebody next to you is. This problem needs to be taken care of so that we all can evolve as a society together and see one and another as equals, but also as human beings. Our background doesn’t make us different, neither does our color, race, ethnicity or way of living. In fact, we are all very similar, we just grew up differently because of those circumstances, we didn’t have a choice to choose what religion or color we wanted to be, we were born into our families and background which is why I think none of us can be wrong, since we all were raised to think our own way.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Gallup: Results are based on face-to-face interviews with approximately 1,000 adults in each country in the regions listed, aged 15 and older, from 2008 through New York Times: By STEVEN GREENHOUSE, September 23, Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy, By Peter Gottschalk, Gabriel Greenber