Causes of Psychological Trauma and Its Effects on Young Arab Americans Post 9/11

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According to the report of FBI(2000), the number of anti-islamic hate crime incidents prior the terrorist attacks were 28. In the immediate year after 9/11, 481 incidents were reported against the Muslims and Arabs(FBI 2002). The hate crime statistics of FBI conforms a staggering increase of 1617 percent in such a short period of time. The Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) reported that over 700 violent incidents were ruthlessly targeted against Arab Americans within the first 9 weeks after the 9/11(Ibish 2003). These incidents included physical violence, death threats, harassment, mockery ,hate mails and many others. Suddenly, an unknown society was brought into the negative spotlight due to the actions of a handful of people. Several cases of discrimination were being recorded increasingly. Government's actions such as detentions and deportations were immensely growing. The racial identity of a community was the main basis to direct the mass deportations. Muslims and Arab societies became the center of focus for the media to negatively stereotype(Hamza and Yaseen 2009).

Such activities tends to be associated to cause psychological trauma, mental illness and behavioral changes. The vast psychological effect of such activities was seen on the young Arab-Americans, including children.

Muslims and Arab American students have faced intense hate crimes in their schools. These hate crimes were reported from college to high school students and even children. According to the congress, hate crime is defined as, “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation”(FBI.gov). These hate crimes were targeted to ...

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...a to the young Arab Americans.

Works Cited

FBI. Hate crime reports of 2000, 2002 and 2010. Retrieved from

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/hate_crimes/overview

M. K. Hamza, Niveen Yaseen, Ashraf F. El-Houbi, Betty Duncan, Carlos Diaz: The Psychology of Media Bias and Its Impact on Arab-American and Muslim Psyche The Arab Journal of Psychiatry (2009) Vol. 20 No 1 Page (18 -33)

Rabby, Faisal. Post 9-11 U.S. Muslim Labor Market Outcomes. Bonn:IZA, 2009. Print.

Ibish, I. (2003). Report on hate crimes and discrimination against Arab Americans: The post-September 11 backlash, September 11, 2001– October 11, 2002. Washington, DC: American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Ibish, I. (2008). Report on hate crimes and discrimination against Arab Americans, 2003-2007. 2008 Washington, DC: American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

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