Joselin Bautista

Professor Jennifer Rodrick

English 115

December 4, 2018

The life of Muslims

How have Muslims been seen around America? Have you ever thought about how

they’re viewed? Let me tell you that Muslims have always been seen in a horrible way. They

have always been seen as terrorist which leads to them not being able to be comfortable in

America. A lot of people have the mindset that Muslims are all bad. Muslims do face

discrimination every day in America especially those who study their religion, Islam. Muslims

have been struggling every day to fit in because of discrimination, trouble going on planes

without people being scared of them, and the president wanting them out of America.

Discrimination is a big factor and a big effect on Muslims. This is due to the fact that a

lot of people do not like Muslims religion. A lot of people have different opinions about Muslims

and most of them have the mindset that they are all terrorist. This leads to people having the

thought of them being involved in certain things. For example, in a YouTube video by

“TheBlaze” called “Millennials Moment: The Evil of Islamic Terror”, the reporter Allie talks

about an 8-year-old murdered by an Islamic terrorist. She says in the video, “An 8-year-old is

murdered by a radical Islamic terrorist, and we’re still denying the existence of evil? … We

should be angry. We should be scared.” Allie in the rest of the video keeps explaining why this

terrorism is evil. She sounds passionate about what she’s talking about and she says that each

one of us should fight against the situation because it’s hurting our country. Allie is clearly

saying that evil exist in this world and we should be able to fix it and make it better. She’s right
but at the same time people shouldn’t be thinking that all Muslims are evil. Everyone is different

from each other and they shouldn’t be seen as the same. People shouldn’t see Muslims as evil

and they shouldn’t be scared of them also.

There has also been people studying this type of topic, seeing how Muslims are viewed in

this society and what type of things specifically influence others to talk to them the way they do.

This can be showed in newspapers, social media and even on the television, specifically on the

topic of news. In an article called “Exposure to Muslims in Media and Support for Public

Policies Harming Muslims.” by Muniba Saleem states, “…across three studies, we tested the

short-term and long-term effects of news portraying Muslims as terrorists on Americans’ support

for public policies harming Muslims domestically and internationally … Study 2 revealed that

exposure to news portraying Muslims as terrorists is positively associated with support for public

policies that harm Muslims domestically and internationally; this effect was fully mediated by

perceptions of Muslims as aggressive.” What Muniba Saleem is saying here is that one of the

studies showed that once the news portrays a Muslim as terrorist, people think they are all the

same, but that can’t always be the case because every person is different from one another. The

studies they make especially the second study shows that the news somehow show people how

Muslims really are because everyone thinks that everything seen on the news is true. This can’t

always be the case because sometimes reporters can get the wrong information or can be biased.

We can see that wherever Muslims go, people think they are evil and discriminate against them.

Muslims have always had trouble with being at peace in an airplane due to the fact that

most people don’t like it when they speak their own language. People are always scared when

they speak in their language because those around are nervous of what they might be talking

about. Everyone says that if you’re in America you have to speak English. Sometimes this leads
to people being scared of them because of what they see on the news. In fact, there has been past

events where Muslims have been kicked out of airplanes. This happens because they happen to

be talking their own language and Americans don’t like it and end up complaining and saying

inappropriate things. This then leads to a much bigger problem than it actually has to be. An

article name, “U.S. Muslims Say Terror Fears Hamper Their Right to Travel” by Neil

Macfarquhar talks about how Muslims are scared when they travel because they feel like they

don’t have the same rights as others. This author talks about how Muslims feel once they go on a

plane by saying that, “The delays, humiliation and periodic roughing up have prompted some

American Muslims to avoid traveling as much as possible. Some even skip meeting anyone at

the airport for fear of a nasty encounter with a law-enforcement officer.” Muslims fear going in

an airport because they feel like their rights are going to be violated. They fear for what’s

someone is going to think of them, especially law enforcement because they think they can act

against them. The picture below shows how Southwest airplanes has really been against Muslims

and also any other cultures that English is not their first language. The bubble in the sign says,

“Fasten your seat belts and prepare to speak English only.” There has been a lot of events where

someone had a problem with it. In many cases Muslims have been getting kicked out of airplanes

because they were not speaking English. This is a really big problem because Muslims are scared

to be discriminated and judged about where they are from.

 A lot of Muslims get discriminated in person and even online. There’s really no

difference at all because they are still making Muslims feel bad and not feel right in this state. In

a YouTube video named, “Peace House”, they had people react to comments under a video that

was titled “Islamic burned this”. A certain comment by Cynthia Gallagher said, “Burn them all

down and deport them all!”, one person who read this comment said, “I was born here where am

I going to be deported to, the hospital?” Others said they’re from New York and others said

they’re American citizens. What I think they mean by saying this is that not everyone is

originally from the middle east. A lot of Muslims were actually born in America but the way

they identify themselves is by saying they’re Muslims because that who they really are. It's the

same as for other religions or other groups in society because even if they’re society group is

something different, it doesn’t matter if they were born in America. Just because one Muslim

does something bad doesn’t mean they’re all the same or even if they’re not the same as

everyone here in America, it doesn’t mean that they should be discriminating them.

The president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, does not want Muslims to

be in America anymore, he wants them out. He says that since they’re immigrants, they have to

leave. In an article by The Washington post named, “‘I think Islam hates us’: A timeline of

Trump’s comments about Islam and Muslims “On Fox Business, Trump says he would

“certainly look at” the idea of closing mosques in the United States. Nov. 16, 2015: Following a

series of terrorist attacks in Paris, Trump said on MSNBC that he would “strongly consider”

closing mosques. “I would hate to do it, but it's something that you're going to have to strongly

consider because some of the ideas and some of the hatred — the absolute hatred — is coming

from these areas,” he said.” The Washington post is telling us what Donald Trump has said about

Muslims in past situations. They said that he has said that he will soon be having all the Muslims
away because he’s practically seeing all Muslims the same. For example, he sees one Muslim be

called a “terrorist”, but not everyone has the same personality as one another. One’s action

should not affect the view of everyone else. Discrimination should never be done because there’s

really no point because your wrong in a lot of cases, not everyone is the same. As we can see the

president doesn’t even want Muslims to be in America, he wants them out of here.

In conclusion, we have seen a few factors of how Muslims are viewed in America. Most

Americans are stereotyping by past news and what they think of them but they don’t really take

the time to noticed that they are not all the same. The world portrays them as terrorist because of

past events. A lot of news articles are saying that Muslims are terrorist and that they are making

this world a bad place and that they shouldn’t be here, but how does one know that they are

Muslims, just because they say they are doesn’t mean that they’re telling the truth it can also

mean that they want the world to think of Muslims in that way. It may be like this or it may not

but we all know that not all Muslims are the same. Muslims may feel like they can’t fit in

because of how a lot of people see them but we are all humans and we all make mistakes or in

other words, a lot of different ethnicity have at least one person who is making others fell terror

in this place we call America.

 Work Cited

Johnson, Jenna and Abigail Hauslohner. “‘I think Islam hates us’: A timeline of Trump’s

comments about Islam and Muslims” The Washington Post, 20 May 2017. Politics,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/20/i-think-islam-hates-

a-timeline-of-trumps-comments-about-islamic-and-muslims/?utm_term=.a60a9764c63.

MacFARQUHAR, Neil. “U.S. Muslims Say Terror Fears Hamper Their Right to Travel.” New

York Times (1923-Current File), 2006, p. A1Schmuck, Desirée, et al.

Saleem, Muniba, et al. “Exposure to Muslims in Media and Support for Public Policies Harming

Muslims.” Communication Research, vol. 44, no. 6, 2017, pp. 841–869

“Negative Stereotypical Portrayals of Muslims in Right‐Wing Populist Campaigns: Perceived

Discrimination, Social Identity Threats, and Hostility Among Young Muslim Adults.”

Journal of Communication, vol. 67, no. 4, 2017, pp. 610–634.

“Muslims On Airplanes: Why There’s Nothing to Fear.” Huffpost, 21 Apr. 2016, https://www.hu

ffingtonpost.com/omar-alnatour/muslims-on-airplanes-nothing-to-fear_b_9741500.html

“Muslims Read Hate Comments *Original*” Youtube, uploaded by Peace House, 20 May 2015,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DopY5N3JeYA

“Millennial Moment: The Evil of Islamic Terror”, Youtube, uploaded by TheBlaze, 23 May

2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzvZw6Vyr2o&index=2&list=PLbTta9mNF3h

xZ3biQWKSvXNMDH76tPDo0&t=0s