Throughout my blog I was able to grow in knowledge of my topic of the expressions of anti Muslim feelings in the United States. Although I am a Muslim living in the United States, I didn’t realize the extent of which anti Muslim feelings are expressed until I researched the topic and found many events that expressed these sentiments. In the beginning of my research I thought that ignorance was the cause for this prejudice against Muslims, but after researching the issue I learned that there are many factors that have caused people to feel a hatred towards Muslims, including to a lack of education that I had thought to be the only factor. Some of the causations of this feeling are political influence, fear of an unknown religion, believing in misleading stereotypes, and the affiliation of Islam with terrorism. Being from a Muslim community did have an effect in my biased thinking in the beginning of this blog. It was challenging to talk about the hardships and hate crimes that my community faces without emotionally favoring one side of my argument. After I did a lot of research I learned how to minimize my natural biasness by supporting all my arguments with evidence. Throughout the blog I tried to approach this issue by addressing the problem and provided examples of expressions that have been caused due to anti Muslim sentiments. I then provided some reasons to how these feelings have developed and attempted to address these causes with hope of ending them. For example, one of the causes was a misunderstanding of Islam, to help individuals better understand this religion, I wrote a post solely about Islam. I was able to achieve addressing my blog in this manner because of the research I conduced that not only allowed me to gain more knowledge about facts but also to gain more incite from what others thought about this topic.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Class Links
I personally enjoyed reading this blog because it was very informative of the current problem the U.S. is facing with illegal immigrants. The blog effectively displays both sides of the argument providing an unbiased source of information. I think this blog is worth looking at because the effect of illegal immigration touches everyone living in the U.S. in some way. I major problem that was mentioned in the blog was the spending the U.S. on illegal immigrants who don’t have health insurance and need health care or for those illegal immigrant who are arrested and live in a jail. The money for this spending come straight from our tax dollars so it was interesting to know that we are actually indirectly sponsoring these immigrants with our tax money. I like the way the blog and argument was set up and the writer had good theories of how this problem could be resolved. I agreed with the majority of the theory, now we will have to wait and see the actions our government will take to solve this issue.
I enjoyed visiting the blog SSB Tax because it discussed the proposed tax of sugar sweetened beverages that I didn’t even know about. I drink sugar drinks yes, but I didn’t know that they could be taxed. I don’t agree with the tax but I found it interesting to learn why the tax was proposed. The fact that the tax is actually a tool to help people drink less SSB due to the high intake of calories was something I found to be very genius and insightful about the motives of the tax. I feel like this blog is worth visiting because it talks about an issue that affects many people on a daily bases. Also the topic of SSB tax is something we don’t hear about a lot in the news so this is a great source of information for it. Also another reason why I like this blog is because it enlightened me to something I had no clue about, FRESHMEN FIFTNEEN!! I didn’t even know there was such a thing as freshmen fifteen and I’m a freshman in college, I just found out about it because that is the name of the url of this blog!
Current Holy War
Current Holy War
I enjoyed this blog for many reasons; first of all I was interested in the topic before I started reading this blog so hearing more information about it was very refreshing, also the blog was able to present the topic in an unbiased manor form a strictly educational stand point. I applaud this blogger for attacking such a difficult topic that even political leaders in our world struggle to find a solution to. From reading this blog it’s evident that the blogger put a lot of thought into the blog and did a lot of research to be able to have a strong foundation of information on the topic. I think this blog is worth reading because it offers great incite to the Arab- Israeli conflict.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Links
This link is from the website of the council on American-Islamic Relations, it was very useful to me because it discusses a lot of unbiased information about Islam and Islamophobia amongst people in the U.S.
This news article from the Sacramento Bee News was useful because it addresses the current rise of anti-Islamic feelings and their causes.
This news paper article from Today’s Zaman was useful in providing information from a Muslim point of view and discussing the political attempts made by U.S. presidents to support Muslims against Muslim prejudices.
This article from the Huntington Post helped me in creating a post on one of the current expressions of anti-Muslim sentiments, the Ground Zero Mosque controversy.
This blog helped me learn about Republican’s role in creating anti- Muslim sentiments by creating in accurate stereotypes to further scare American citizens.
This blog from CBS news helped me because it talks about the Ground Zero Mosque controversy and how Muslims have the right to its construction granted to them by the constitution.
From this website I was able to pull direct quotes form verses of Quran to help create a better understanding of Islam in my Islam post
The new article from this website helped me learn about another example of anti-Muslim Expression that took place in Murfreesboro Tennessee.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tennessee
Hate crimes against Muslims has been a reoccurring problem in the city of Murfreesboro Tennessee. Expression of anti Muslims feelings can be viewed in the vandalism of property belonging to the proposed Islamic Center in Murfreesboro. Recently on August 27, 2010 an unidentified person trespassed on the construction site of the new mosque and set one of the construction vehicles on fire. They then drenched the other vehicles with gasoline and fled the site. John Green, a local attorney and supporter of the Islamic Center, believes that along with this being a case of vandalism it is also a hate crime. "I don't think there's any reason to suspect it's anything other than a hate crime," Green said. "John Ford, of Ole South Construction Company, has insurance on the equipment; it's not anything else but a vicious display of bigotry against the members of the center." The criminal was able to instill fear in the hearts of Muslims; since the attack some Muslims have been afraid to leave their house due to fear of being attacked. But these were not the only attack on the construction site. Earlier in January the sign at the site of the future mosque was damaged by graffiti writing sprayed on the sign saying “Not Welcome”. The sign was replace but in June the new sign was broken. Already existing mosques in Tennessee have to been vandalized. Al farooq mosque was attacked by Christian graffiti of crosses and writing saying “Muslims go home”. But what these terrorist individuals fail to realize is that being Muslim does not cancel ones’ citizenship, how does someone who was born here and grew up here, and knows the United States as his own country, to “go home” if they are already home. Organizations such as Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) condemns the ongoing religious intolerance in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and promotes freedom of religion, freedom of worship, and freedom of conscience for all of our fellow human beings. However there are many people who are against the construction of the Islamic center. Republican Lou Ann Zelenik has been one of the leading individuals oppose to the building, she argues: "our nation was founded on the tenets of the Judeo-Christian tradition; we have a right to defend that tradition.” But this act of intolerance is clearly opposed to the first amendment created by the forefathers of the U.S, and that is the freedom for religion. Construction of the mosque is still undergoing despite all attempts to prevent is existence
Friday, October 22, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Implications
What will happen if intolerant attitudes towards Muslims do not end? There is the potential for an increase in anti- Muslim sentiments amongst U.S. citizens. Islamophobia will manifest amongst those who are uneducated on the topic of Islam and are furthermore sensitive to stereotypes made by individuals who harbor anti- Muslim feelings. There has been a sustained, violent manner against American Muslims, which not only gives more examples of prejudice in the U.S, but also increases danger to the overall neighboring community. Attacks on people who resemble Middle Eastern people have been documented and these individuals were not at all Muslim. Some of these individuals were not even of Arabian descent. However, they were still threatened and some even assaulted. Violent attacks on Muslim owned property may harm individuals who use these stores. If Muslims continue to be persecuted, an excess of businesses may give way to failure and hurt the overall economy of the U.S. The potential for religious intolerance may develop to the level where intolerance of numerous other groups that resemble Islam arises. Anti- Muslim feelings can also affect the U.S’ foreign policies with other countries and the wars they fight in Arabian land. If more people support the anti Muslim position then they will be more likely to favor war with Arab countries with the justification of fighting terrorism. Although these are a few simple outcomes that may develop with the persistence of this problem one can already see that anti Muslims feelings have many negative influences that will only worsen with the increase of these sentiments.
Monday, October 18, 2010
My Theory
Anti Muslims feelings didn’t just spring up out of nowhere, they had to evolve over time especially to since it’s still a growing sentiment amongst U.S citizens. The 9/11 attacks hurt many individuals emotionally, mentally, and physically. People started affiliating Muslims with terrorism because the terrorist that attacked the U.S. where extremist Muslims. To cope with the wounds of the attacks many people accused all Muslims of supporting terrorism and thus they became subjected to hatred throughout the country. Although this is where the majority of Anti-Muslims feeling developed, there are many factors contributing to its spread. Islam is a misunderstood religion that is believed to be primitive and promotes irrational violence; it is also seen as a political ideology, in which Muslims are using to gain military advantage. The key theme here is perspective. Depending on one’s perspective Islam can be peaceful or violent. Islamophobia for example has developed a negative perspective of Islam. Another factor that has caused an increase of anti Muslims feelings is politics. It’s known that political leaders throughout history have used peoples’ fear of Islam to campaign for themselves. For instance the Republicans who tend to be a pro Christian conservative group use anti- Muslims feelings to persuade the public that Islam is an evil religion that can be controlled by the republicans if they were to be elected. I believe that a good way to stop anti Muslims feelings in the U.S would be to start by stopping falsified information regarding Islam. Educating the public with the true teachings of Islam will eliminate all the misleading stereotypes that are widely believed in our society.
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