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what are some stereotypes about muslims and arabs that seem challenging
stereotypes essay muslims
stereotypes essay muslims
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What does one think of when one says the word ‘Islam’? Is it the Quran? Or is it Allah? Is it the word ‘jihad’? Or is it simply 9/11? How much influence do images have on people today? Do they shape how we think or how we perceive “our world?” Is everybody’s vision of the world the same? Does religion define our world? Or do images define our religion? To what extent have we allowed ourselves to submit to blatant imagery? The terrorist attack in America on 11 September 2001 has been widely interpreted as an event so traumatic that it shatters the symbolic resources of the individual and escapes the normal processes of meaning-making and cognition. The dissemination of images from the area around ground zero immediately after 9/11 have been carefully controlled, and these restrictions shape a new and urgent context for the sustained discussion of words and images, of reading and viewing the world from a confined perspective. Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers is a comic that uses images to describe, distinguish and define what happened during the 9/11 attacks, it simultaneously highlights America’s hunger for revenge on Islam and the drastic effect is had on changing the face of Islam. Islam has been characterized by the media as a religion of violence. Images of Islam have been translated through several means such as media and cartoons causing several conflicts and controversies all over the world. One terrorist attack and an over exaggerated media characterization changed the face of Islam today causing it to be victim to stereotypes and generalizations. For centuries, religion has depended upon images to spread the message of religion. The iconic image of Jesus, or the prefixed image of a Muslim, all religions com... ... middle of paper ... ...sonal nightmare from which we've yet to awaken in order to realize the real destruction the 9/11 bombings left us with. It left us with a fragmented, ignorant human race that nine years after the incident progressed in technology, politics, news, military but failed to progress in terms of repairing racial divides, and moving past stereotypes 9/11 gave birth to. We failed to redraw the divides between state and religion and blatantly stuck to images and conventions in order to live an ignorant, pleasant life. It is like Spiegelman describes it“we're scared shitless, we couldn’t take that. I'm not only a cartoonist--I'm a physical coward.” Works Cited • www.thenation.com/article/only-pictures • "The Time 100: Art Spiegelman: The Cartoon Genius," by Marjane Satrapi, Time, April 18, 2005 • Spiegelman, Art. In the Shadow of No Towers. Self Published, 2002-2004.
The media has been known to portray or show many “Muslims” as terrorists, and several times they fail to show the peaceful Muslims. Furthermore, the media affects the perception of many Americans, and when they portray Muslims as scary and dangerous people, this causes many stereotypes to form. This in turn, makes it common for people to accept and believe in the various stereotypes of Muslims. Also, countless Muslims are ethnically profiled based on their religious appearance. To be more specific, numerous Muslims are stereotyped due to their long beards and cultural robes. Stereotypes, such as these, are affected by the descriptions of other notorious terrorists, such as Osama Bin Laden, who was well known for his long beard. Additionally, a number of people have become irrational and unreasonable when it comes to preventing Muslims to affect America, such as many protests “to ban Sharia law in any American court” (Azlan). Sharia is basically the law of an Islamic government, and the protest is illogical, since Sharia law has never been practiced in any American court and there is no indication, that there will be (Azlan). Many of these labels are unfair, and the media unjustly portrays and connects innocent American Muslims to terrorists which is
For a second, the U.S. stood still. Looking up at the towers, one can only imagine the calm before the storm in the moment when thousands of pounds of steel went hurdling into its once smooth, glassy frame. People ran around screaming and rubble fell as the massive metal structure folded in on itself like an accordion. Wounded and limping from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, America carried on, not without anger and fear against a group of innocent Americans, Muslim Americans. Nietzsche’s error of imaginary cause is present in the treatment of Muslim Americans since 9/11 through prejudice in the media, disregard of Muslim civil liberties, racial profiling, violence, disrespect, and the lack of truthful public information about Islam. In this case, the imaginary cause against Muslims is terrorism. The wound has healed in the heart of the U.S. but the aching throb of terrorism continues to distress citizens every day.
In the essay, the writer acknowledges the misunderstandings that come from media images by explaining the contrasts between these images and the teachings of the faith to support her claim that fear is the reason for this misconception. The conception that many people have of Muslims is that they are terrorists, anti-Semites, and fanatics. This conception exsists because television news and newspapers support that stereotype. The broadcast of such stereotypes encourages fear and accusations of the Islamic relegion's teachings. The writer explains that Islam teaches peace, tolerance, and equality. She further states that Muslims shown in the media have violated these teachings ...
Culture is made up of three main components: ethics, aesthetics, and religion (Lincoln 52). The lines of culture become skewed as it often blends in with political and religious views. In Western Europe during the time of the Reformation, the Church was the central ruler of the society. This meant that religion was not only a cultural view, but also a political one. As time moved on, the Church became less important, but today’s standards still connect religion to culture. This becomes an issue as individuals who are noticeably outside the culture in forms or religion are often judged and looked down upon (Lincoln 56). Due to this outcast it can cause anger to certain religions and culture which can often lead to these acts of violence. With the hate between cultures, religion becomes the justifiable mean on which violence can occur. Many individuals can state that God wants them to make their own religion superior, and one way they can draw attention to their religion is terrorism and other forms of violence. Due to this connection to culture, religion can not be separated into it’s own personal category, as it is forever affected by the changes and culture of the community (Lincoln 57). As time and culture progress, the religion of the community will either change with it, or fight the changes which will often cause conflict. This can be seen in the results of the practice of Jihad, the Reformation and
The September 11th attacks did leave a mark on the United States. The world watched the media account of the tragic events as they were captured by digital and print media. The author in this article explores different aspects of the tragedy to analyze the both Australian and American thoughts and understanding of the events. She has broken it down into categories: the aftermath of the attacks, interpretations of the attacks, and challenges that impeded existing structures of representation. Questions of how the attack was viewed, and how the terrorist evoked terror and mass terrorism are reviewed. In essence Western civilization was forever changed after September 11th 2001. The events of September 11 did leave something other than destruction and loss of lives. More than structures were demolished, a nation was forever changed. The attacks were so blind siding that, according to McMillian (2004) “…no retaliatory acts action was commenced during this 72-hour period against the suspected terrorist or the group to which they were linked, namely Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan” (p. 2). How can this be explained? Did the United States really knowingly harbor terrorist, or was the United States blind-sided. Either way it is not an easy pill to swallow. According to the reports the pilots were trained in America. A war was created against terrorism, the target Afghanistan. Starting in early January 2000, the “planes operation” formation would begin in California. Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mildhar would arrive arrived in Los Angeles under the order of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM). He was the organizer of the “planes operation”, and he instructed those under him what to and not to do to draw any unnecessary attentio...
By its very nature, religious art aims to forge some kind of connection between the human viewer and the holy. Specific imagery in artwork can provide a concrete, readable representation of outside concepts that are otherwise too broad and complex to express literally. This enables religious stories, dogma, and ritual to be conveyed in a way that, once identified in the image, imparts the desired connection to the religion in the viewer. Religious art standardizes these images so that they apply to the entire canon of work, and so work using similar icons can have be understood as having comparable
Islam is portrayed and is commonly accepted as the most violent and largest direct threat to the West. This is a generalization made by most of the West, but it is not particularly the West or the Islamic people’s fault. There is constant turmoil in Islamic countries in the Middle East and these conflicts are what make the news in the West. The only representation in the media that the Islamic nation gets is that of war. Though most Islamic people are not violent, the select few that do participate in terrorist groups give the rest of the Islam nation a bad image.
Islam in America has historically been misunderstood, and this is due to the misconception of culture and religion as well as lack of education and incorrect portrayal in the media, which gives a skewed idea of Islam. Especially in the United States, Islam has been seen as the “terrorist religion” or a religion for the extremists and a religion in which freedom is not an option. Among the countless misconceptions, the basis of stereotypes by Americans is due to the mix up between religion and culture. Furthermore, the media only fuels fire to these misunderstandings and lack of factual information about Islam causing Americans to lash out on American Muslims without reason.
Muslims have been facing propaganda by media of the western world since many decades. Western media spreads any negative incident in which Muslims are involved very quickly. Many people have developed such an understanding due to this stigmatization that they normally think of terrorism, violence and other extreme things when they hear about Islam and Muslims. One major incident behind such stigmatization is the 9/11 attacks on America.
The knowledge of the audience is based on the images, symbols and narratives from sources of media such as television, film, music and other media (Brooks & Hebert, 297). During times of war, government campaigns and media systems have a strong influence in creating attitudes about a specific targeted group of people. This creates influential stereotypes into the minds of the audience. Islamophobia is defined as unfounded hostility towards Muslims (Defining Islamophobia). Islamophobes believe that Islam does not share the same teachings of other faiths, and Islam is a religion of violence which supports terrorism. The media produces images of Muslims and Islam as fundamentalists, terrorists, sexist, suicide bombers, militant and undemocratic (Defining Islamophobia). Race plays a major role in the public attitude toward Islam because in society, Muslims are viewed as Arabic. Hollywood has equated Islam and Arabs with violence and evil. Arabs ha...
Suzanna Berne’s article “Where Nothing Says Everything” discusses the sequence of events that Berne encounters as she attempts to pay her respects to the 9/11 tragedy. From the elements within her writing, Berne demonstrates the significant meaning of the World Trade Center’s absence. It is from her personal experience and play on words that she is able to accurately express her thesis. Within her piece, Suzanna Berne comes to the conclusion that the impact of 9/11 on the American people forces them to unite in order to overcome the loss of the World Trade Center along with the people who went down with it.
If one were to research the answer to these questions based upon media interpretation, the answers provided by the media would make Islam appear to be a religion of hatred and violence. On the contrary, as stated by Robinson (2007) the Islam religion is divided into many subgroups. Of those subgroups, “a very small, radical, hate-filled, extremist, Fundamentalist, terrorist wing does exist. So too does a much larger peaceful, moderate wing” (Islam: Is It a Religion of Violence or of Peace?, ¶3).
After 9/11 has induced negative attitudes towards Muslim peoples who tend to be strongly associated with any act of terrorism. The media has played a colossal role in developing such negative association wherein it constantly portrays Muslim people in combination with violent terrorist acts. It does so in a way that they both go hand-and-hand. In other words, it has made it as though the Islamic religion is synonymous with terrorism. The media has perpetuated Muslim stereotypes over the years that followed the 9/11 incident. Because of this, society has developed, and still has developed, this prejudiced mindset about the Islamic religion and the Muslim communities around the world. People immediately assume that any violent act being depicted through the media is the direct result of Muslims. They automatically generate this idea that the act was performed by a Muslim terrorist even when they were not involved whatsoever. Regardless of whether it was true or not, Islamic religion and its Muslim adherents are at the top of societies’ agenda just waiting for the evidence to be generated so that they can then safely blame them for such world affairs. Again, this has led to the attack on the Islamic religion itself wherein people have come to postulate Islam as an act of oppression, violence and hatred towards non-Muslims. Anti-Muslim sentiments and campaigns have resulted from such misinformation the media has been generating and feeding its viewers.
We live in an age and time where media influence is at its highest. The media has an impact on us as an audience through every possible medium including both television and print media. As scientists find and cure diseases, as America finds a new country to invade, as the European markets fluctuate, there has been one constant subject prevalent in the Western media- Islam. 1.6 billion people in the world are of the Muslim religion (Desilver 2013), making it the world’s second largest religion, second to Christianity. Even prior to the events of 9/11, the religion of Islam has been under scrutiny by the media. Edward Said, infamous for his works on Orientalism has greatly contributed to our understanding of the Western misunderstanding of the Eastern based religion. Said has defined Orientalism as the Western’s style of domination, reconstruction, and authority over the Orient (Said 1978: 3). Orientalism has observable effects in the most forms of media. As a result, and irrational fear of Islam and those that practice the religion began-Islamophobia. As defined by the International Civil Liberties Alliance, Islamophobia is “a term which is widely used by NGOs and frequently appears in the media, tends to denote fear, hatred or prejudice against Islam and Muslim” (ICLA 2013). This project will attempt to understand what the audience perception is about Islamophobia in the media. It will aim to uncover the ways in which television channels amplify common misperceptions about Islam. As a Muslim myself, this is an area that has always been of interest to me, and like many audiences I have been able to witness the dimensions of Islamophobia s depicted by the western media. After the events of September 2001, the fears of Islam and ...
On September 11, 2001, the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon changed the mindset and the opinion of nearly every American on the one of the most vital issues in the 21st century: terrorism (Hoffman 2). Before one can begin to analyze how the United States should combat such a perverse method of political change, one must first begin to understand what terrorism is, where it is derived from, and why there is terrorism. These issues are essential in America’s analysis of this phenomenon that has revolutionized its foreign policy and changed America’s stance in the world.