These so-called “no-go zones” ban all non-Muslims from entering, including police.
“No-go zones.” (Islamophobia 2015) This is the term being attributed to areas of religious discrimination which are appearing everywhere it seems, forcing non-Muslims out of these areas unreasonably. How are they allowed to do this?? The Muslims must be wreaking havoc inside their walls, breaking any normal laws and using their crazy terrorist rules instead, wrecking any sense of normalcy and trapping anyone caught inside their reign. These can only lead to ISIS outbreaks everywhere, right? Consider for a moment that all of that information is false. “No-go zones” are a falsification produced by the real plague, which goes by the name of Islamophobia. Whether reported by Fox News or Bobby Jindal (Islamophobia 2015), this misinformation is force fed to us by the ones that we are supposed to trust.
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Islamophobia is a threat to society. Looking at the origins of it, through politicians or celebrities or even news networks, as shown above, it’s not hard to wonder why it stuck. Though really examining it, Islamophobia is highly questionable; it derives mostly from inaccurate stereotypes made up by those who really have no complete interactions with anyone of the Islamic faith. In other words, they’re making up reasons to hate Muslims. Not only this, but they call for action to react to these “threats”. For example, Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plan involves a system where Muslims would be required to “register in a national database.” (Rosenthal 2015) The problems with this shouldn’t even need to be explained, but yet these sorts of ideas keep showing up.
Now here’s something a bit more real than the inexistent “no-go zones”. In Susan Shabazz’s culture, it is custom that she wears a burka. There’s nothing wrong with this. She gets home from work early one day, and is in a baking mood, so she wants to make some cookies for her kids before they finish school for the day. However, she didn’t have eggs, so she needed to go to the store. She went to the only grocery store in her town, because if she took the trip to the next closest one then she wouldn’t be back in time. However, the speed of the trip comes with its tradeoffs. Upon entrance, the men at the register stop their conversation. After exchanging a couple words, the one behind the counter shouts over to her – “We don’t sell to towelheads in this establishment.” She tried to ignore it, going to pick up the milk, but a reiteration of “Y’hear me? Or are those rags making you deaf?” made her replace the milk in its slot, mutter an apology, and head out of the store. One of the men follows her out. “And don’t come back now, ya hear? F---in’ terrorist raghead scum.” Luckily, he didn’t follow her home. No cookies today.
Bigotry doesn’t really care who you are. Hatred consumes all placed in its path.
Now, by no means is this to say all racism and religious discrimination comes from racist store owners with accents. Everyone can be prejudiced, and with current events being as they are with unrest in the Middle East, perhaps the easiest path is to not think, and decide that all Middle-Eastern looking people, no matter where they’re from, are evil. Ignorance is highly prevalent, but Islamophobia has no excuse.
Now, it is a common argument against Islamophobia to say that a very, very small portion of Muslims are terrorists. However, it is also commonly reasoned in response that well, what percentage of terrorists are Islamic? This statement alone is highly misleading. In fact, before doing the research, I also was very misinformed as to the answer to this question. The truth? Between 1980 and 2005, according to the FBI, 94% of terrorism in the United States was conducted by non-Muslims (Obeidallah 2015). In fact, in 2013, Americans were more likely “to be killed by a toddler than a terrorist.” (Obeidallah 2015) A very miniscule percentage of Muslims are “terrorists”. Additionally, only a small percentage of terrorists are Muslim. Furthermore, terrorist is such a broadly used term. The “enemy” (which in itself, is a ridiculous concept) has come to be labeled as all terrorists. The US and its allies have been fighting terrorism in the Middle East for over a decade. Yet, that is not all they’ve been fighting. The focus is kept on the “war on terror” so that the public doesn’t completely abandon their support for the conflict. ‘Our boys will keep killing terrorists, yep, support our troops while we combat evil, don’t worry about the fact that ISIS has risen up even after all our apparent efforts to stop terrorism. We’ll stop them too, just like we did the terrorists. Give us time.’ To clarify, the military isn’t necessarily at fault here, but it is important to re-examine what we’ve been fighting for in the Middle East.
Islamophobia is a plague. If it is left unattended, it will grow its roots and further sink into the domain of social ideology. The time is now to inspire change. The dominant group, being those not of the Islamic faith, has the social and moral responsibility to ensure the fairness of its actions and mindsets. There is no utilitarian appeal to Islamophobia, there is no greater good in exhibiting an unfounded mistrust in Muslims. Those who have Islamophobia may very well likely be more dangerous than the Muslims they target. In fact, this is almost purely a moral issue. Islamophobia is not fair, as it ignores the rights of Muslims, and works against justice and virtue. The question remains: What is the basis for Islamophobia? As it stands in my mind, there is no reasoning, ethical or otherwise, why Islamophobia is justified or acceptable.
Don’t be on the wrong side of progress, avoid the bigoted mindset of Islamophobia; it has no place in modern society.
References
Islamophobia in the 2016 Presidential Election. (2015, September 28). Retrieved December 1, 2015, from http://www.islamophobia.org/
Obeidallah, D. (2015, January 14). Are All Terrorists Muslims? It’s Not Even Close. Retrieved December 1, 2015, from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/14/are-all-terrorists-muslims-it-s-not-even-close.html
Rosenthal, A. (2015, November 20). Donald Trump's Horrifying Plan for American Muslims. Retrieved December 1, 2015, from http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/20/donald-trumps-horrifying-plan-for-american-muslims/?_r=0
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Thank you for reading my article, and I apologize for the infuriating title, but I find that it's more effective on these sorts of topics to pretend to start with the opposing view. This is an article I wrote for my Focused Inquiry class, which is based on developing critical thinking and writing. The article is dated 2015.12.01. I hope you enjoyed reading this, and encourage you to read my other posts if you like my writing.
To clarify, the map at the beginning of the article is a map of zones urbaines sensibles (ZUS), areas of higher crime which might be targets for development projects. The map is not based off Islamic populations.
Trying to continue with an earlier thread about passports and documentation...
Actually, @azas, there have been crimes committed by undocumented immigrants from Mexico. Unfortunately right now it is very easy for criminals to cross the border and commit crimes, and some of the ones who have murdered innocent Americans had committed previous crimes, been caught, and deported before.
This is not to say I believe all people who cross the border illegally are violent criminals. Far from it. However, it still makes sense to have a more secure border which provides a clear pathway to legal entry for those immigrants we believe would be beneficial to our country while barring entry to those who would be detrimental. For example, someone who could be barred from entry would be someone with a criminal history or record. Those who talk about securing the borders are not racist or anti-immigration. They simply want to know that the people coming in are people of good will, and they would like to keep the bad guys out, especially the known bad guys.
I haven't done enough research on this topic (immigration, undocumented immigrants) to feel comfortable continuing discussion, unfortunately.
No problem. Good to admit limitations :)
I understand the claim that there is no utilitarian appeal to Islamophobia. Does it also follow that there is no pragmatic appeal to Islamophobia?
Thanks for asking. I don't think there is a pragmatic appeal to Islamophobia - the potential danger of interacting with a Muslim is so minute that the most pragmatic approach to minimizing danger would be to limit yourself to no interaction with anyone, rather than placing that focus on the Islamic. In other words, there's no sense to targeting Muslims as a way to minimize danger - everyone is more or less equally dangerous.
Additionally, and perhaps most obviously, we can consider moral ethical reasoning - Islamophobia is wrong, for it places fear from a culture which has no basis for that assumption. Does that make sense? Again, I appreciate the discussion.
Then I think it also follows that there is no utilitarian/pragmatic appeal to passports.
That's a very interesting line of argument, could you provide more on your thoughts on this?
Personally, I don't think there is a pragmatic use for passports - the potential danger of the undocumented is so minute that the most pragmatic approach to minimizing danger would be to limit yourself to no interaction with anyone, rather than placing that focus on the undocumented. In other words, there's no sense to targeting the undocumented as a way to minimize danger - everyone is more or less equally dangerous.
Additionally, and perhaps most obviously, we can consider moral ethical reasoning - undocumentaphobia is wrong, for it places fear from a lack of documentation which has no basis for that assumption.
I can definitely see the danger in someone getting the mindset that all Muslims are bad or that categorically Islam is a bad religion. However, I also see where our leaders who want to vet immigrants more thoroughly are coming from. Lately, the people who have been committing brutal murders have not been coming from Sweden. And they all seem to profess to a particular religion. If you don't want your religion badmouthed, then don't commit atrocities in the name of your religion. The people who need to be stopped are the ones cutting people's heads off and murdering priests in their church buildings, not the ones who are scared of them. That said, on a personal level, we should continue to treat all people with the dignity and respect that is intrinsic to who we are as human beings. And I'd like the same treatment from others.
There's what I consider a few problems in perception contained here:
I hope this makes sense to you, and definitely let me know your thoughts in response. In posting this blog, I wanted to inspire conversations like this, so I'm glad you commented :)
That's the thing. I haven't heard of any Muslims disavowing the violence. And then there are the communities in which the violent people live. Their neighbors know what they're up to, such as building bombs, and they never say anything to the police. That happened with the guy who coordinated the bombings in Paris and I think the one in Brussels too. There unfortunately seems to be more of a tacit approval of their violence than a condemnation of it within their own communities.
You are right in that many people commit crimes with no religious motive whatsoever. Unfortunately, when Muslim extremists commit crimes, they invoke their religion over and over. And then the Muslims who are not extremists themselves seem to largely remain silent. While I personally do not believe that all (or even most) Muslims are violent, they unfortunately are not helping to debunk that perception, which grows each time some crazy guy shoots a bunch of people and then himself while shouting that they are doing this in the name of Allah.
I am actually concerned that at some point our own country may do something to the Muslims like what we did to the Japanese in WWII--put them in internment camps. That's why I'd actually like to hear a louder voice from the peaceful Muslim community not only denouncing the extremist violence but outlining how as a religion they intend to put a stop to this. They won't be able to completely end it, but they could come up with a plan, such as vetting all Muslim imams and preachers for violent rhetoric and not tolerating the ones who do preach violence. They could explain to adherents the procedure for reporting suspicious activity (such as bomb building or amassing of weapons) to the local police. They could outline how the Koran teaches against all forms of violence (even that done to "infidels"). The Koran does teach that violence is unacceptable, right? These are things that have to be handled within the Muslim community, and which can't easily be imposed from the outside.
If the Muslims rise up to denounce the violence and get proactive about putting a stop to it, then I think there will be a positive ripple effect which will eventually dampen the enthusiasm of the extremists. However, if the religion as a whole is unwilling to address the violence, then it will very quickly come to the point where various restrictions will have to be imposed on them in order to ensure everyone else's safety. They aren't likely to like those restrictions very much, which is why it would be far better if they can handle this in house.
Essentially no Muslim outside of groups focused on terrorism accepts these acts of violence, and many prominent Islamic leaders have spoken out against the violence, so I'm not sure where your information is coming from.
It's more like, negative information, or lack of information. Who are these prominent Muslim leaders denouncing these acts of terrorism? I haven't heard of them, but would certainly love to. I realize the mainstream press can hardly be trusted to give truthful information, but what tends to come through is that there are people who take to the streets celebrating when some particularly "successful" act of terrorism was carried out. I've seen clips of that. Have never seen clips of Islam leaders denouncing either the terrorism itself or the celebration of it. I will be honest in that I haven't deliberately looked for it. But the narrative coming through is that in general Muslims are silent or even celebratory when terrorism is successful. I'm not saying that's true, and I sure hope it isn't. But that is the impression that is out there. Unfortunately, that is what the peaceful Muslims are up against, which means they have to work harder to overcome it. I'd love to see proof of their efforts, so if you can send me some links of statements by prominent Muslim leaders, I'd love to study them.
@inertia Won't let me reply any more so starting a new chain:
I don't see it in the same way - passports are a form of identification and a process of vetting people. If you have a suspicious history, your passport can be flagged. Immigrants are vetted as well, this article wasn't to raise issue with that process. I don't think there is an 'undocumentaphobia', just they aren't allowed to travel in the same ways because the government likes to keep track of people coming into and out of their borders.
Do you think that every single undocumented person represents a danger?
I don't think I've ever encountered a person living in the U.S. whose had a problem obtaining documentation if they have the money to be traveling. Not sure this topic is relevant. Do you have an experience stemming this concern or?
Undocumented is a euphemism for illegal mexicans who came over the border without a green card. You're absolutely correct, at some point, they are technically documented in some way. But that's not what I'm going on about.
Oh if we're talking undocumented immigrants from Latin America, I don't think they're a danger at all really. I was thinking you were talking more about airport passport control.
I'll give you my upvote.
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David Foster Wallace is one of my favorite authors.