Islamophobia

Cameron Levenson-Cruz, Connor Ffrench, Joseph OBrien, William Kellogg

April 5, 2016

1. INTRODUCTION: According to a recent survey by the Council of American Islamic

Relations, four in ten Americans think that Muslims are violent and extreme; this belief is
strengthened by the mainstream media as it portrays Islam as being radical and intolerant. As
Islam quickly spreads into the west, expelling these stereotypes about the muslim community is
extremely important to decrease the hate inside our country. As many of the people who believe

and preach these stereotypes have little to no knowledge of Islam, they tend to classify all
Muslims based on the extremists who act in the name of Islam. As it is easy to classify all
Muslims as extremists and violent, it is important to not follow these stereotypes and show
people the truth about Muslims. Today muslims are discriminated against because of the negative
stereotypes that are spread against them. For example, recently a muslim man was escorted off a
plane because the people around him thought he was planning an attack, when in reality he was
doing math at an ivy league level. A solution to this problem is to have whoever is spreading
these false accusations meet a Muslim, and see for themselves the kind nature of Muslims, which
we will expose the public to in our project. In our proposal we will outline how our project will
be completed from our motivation to the deadlines we have set for ourselves. As our world
becomes more globalized, it is important we spread love, not hate about these people.

2. MOTIVATION: Islam has influenced the western world significantly throughout its over one
thousand year history. Muslims have been arriving in the U.S. since the 1880s from various
nations. Currently they are the third largest religious group in America, after Christianity and
Judaism, with approximately 1% of the population, or around 3.3 million people, and this
number is projected to continue to rise. However, since the terrorist attacks on September 11,
2001, a large section of the American population is distrustful of Muslims to say the least. As a
direct result, a planned Muslim community center that was going to be built in New York City
was canceled after many critics deemed it the ground zero mosque, despite it being neither a
mosque nor at ground zero. According to a 2010 Gallup poll, Muslims are significantly more
likely to have experienced racial or religious discrimination in the past year than any other
religious groups. Even a few presidential candidates have called for the barring of Muslims from
entering America or police patrols of Muslim neighborhoods. Recent terrorist attacks in Paris
and Brussels have highlighted how negative American opinions are primarily based on security
threats and not theological differences. Only around 53% of Americans know that Allah is simply
the Arabic word of God (Pew/). This ignorance is nothing more than one example of a lack of
knowledge of a significant Americas population. Currently Muslims are considered the third
least electable population after socialists and atheists with around half of people saying they
would not vote for a Muslim even if he was well qualified and from their party.

3. PROJECT SUMMARY: Our social experiment is supposed to relate to people of all faiths,
as we shall ask them about their personal dealings with religious discrimination. By hosting
interviews with the people from the Islamic Center and Seaport Village we hope to draw parallels
from Muslims and non-Muslims alike. After we have completed the questionnaire we will point
out that these are the kind of struggles that Muslims continuously fall victim to.
Furthermore, we believe that posting this video on YouTube will have a butterfly effect that will
continue to spark a dialogue about Muslim stereotypes and how these misconceptions have

become so prevalent within todays society. We believe that YouTube is a perfect platform to
easily and accessibly showcase a video towards the viewing public. Viewers will have the option
to click the share button, and forward this video to other social media sites. The more people see
this video, the more likely they are to Breakfree of society's negative conceptions about Muslims,
and in place, welcome more tolerable viewpoints within our communities. We want to promote
understanding. Hopefully this video will show that weve all been discriminated against. It
doesnt feel good to have your personal views attacked. Its wrong that Muslims have to go
through these constant struggles of discrimination. All religions have been discriminated against,
but given recent events, Islam has drawn tremendous hate within todays society. This is why our
video is so poignant in changing peoples perceptions. Its not right for Muslims to be afraid of
showing their faith in public or to have fear of admitting they are Muslim. Numerous amounts of
people throughout history have flocked to the U.S. for safety and religious tolerance. That
shouldnt be lost on todays U.S. culture. This video will show the importance of maintaining
religious tolerance in America. Rejecting Muslims from entering this country is like refusing all
incoming German immigrants just because their country was affiliated with the Nazi party.
Living in a post World War II era, one does not associate Germans with Nazis, and we should not
associate all followers of Islam as radicals. When ISIS is eradicated and there is less tension in
the Middle East, this same effect will apply to Muslims. As time shall heal all wounds, lets
move forward and begin to heal. Therefore, the essence of our project is that we need to educate
society not to spread fear, but tolerance. We have to be progressive and take the first necessary
steps to promote understanding. This video will hopefully be our contribution towards change.

4. PROJECT DETAILS: In order to get society to break free of these stereotypes, our group
will be making a video that shows people in the process of breaking free. We will be stationed at
Seaport Village while people are out and about. We are going to interview people of all ages,
races and genders. In our video we will have a representative from the Islamic Center of San
Diego named Taha Hassane to speak in our video and explain what Islam really is and the
benefits of the religion. In this video and social experiment, we will be hoping to get the
attention of all types of people. By interviewing different ages, races, genders, we hope to gather
as much data from society's view as possible. Something that may be an issue for us is people not
wanting to be educated and not wanting to take time out of their day. This idea is unique because
people are having to answer the same questions a whole religion answered, and then try to
understand how society views and treats that religion. Some of the issues our group will face is
trying to have people come and take part in our social experiment, ignorant people who will not
pay attention to the muslim people and what they have to say. Although reaching out to these
people may be tough sometimes, we'll just be kind and understanding if they dont want to
participate. That is the main reason as to why we want to go to Seaport Village, a very popular
tourist site in San Diego. Through this project we are going to change the way society views a
religion. At the end of our video we will have people hold up a whiteboard with a hashtag that

says #changesocietiesview. It will be eye opening for society to see what their peers have to
say about a religion.

Taha Hassane
Imam/Director of Public/Interfaith Relations & Youth Program
taha.hassane@icsd.org
From this project, we hope to provide everyday people just a glimpse of what muslims
have to deal with quite often. Our project will achieve an eye opening experience for those we
interview at Seaport Village. They will get a chance to see how muslims feel with everyday
people, just like the ones we are interviewing. We will be using a camera, iMovie and a
microphone to make our video. Joe will be interviewing the people, Will and Joe will be
recording the interview and finally Connor and Cameron will be the video editors. The time and
dates of our project will go in a scheduled order. Our group will follow these dates to the best of
our abilities and we will execute the project based on the following dates.
April 27 - Draft and create posters/ Contact Expert
April 28 - Draft and create questions for actors
April 29 - Draft and create questions for actors
May 17 - Interview our expert
May 17 - Go to record social experiment at Seaport Village and Islamic Center of
San Diego
May 18 - May 25 - Edit our video
5. CONCLUSION: As we progress as a nation it is important to recognize the religious liberties
of all citizens of the world. Although being a leader in the world starts with fixing the current
problems we have in our nation. Equality and freedom is an ideal our nation is based off of and
until every American citizen is treated the same and as able to live their lives without
discrimination our job as citizens is not done. As young Americans, it is our duty to continue to
improve upon America, and speak up for those who have no voice.

Works Cited

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-religion-andpolitics
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/a-fascinating-look-at-the-political-views-ofmuslim-americans/242975/
Friedersdorf, Conor. "A Fascinating Look at the Political Views of Muslim Americans." The
Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 3 Aug. 2011. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2015/images/09/12/iranpoll.pdf
Muslims Widely Seen As Facing Discrimination." Pew Forum. Pew Research Center, 9 Sept.
2009. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.
"Obama." Obama. CNN, 13 Sept. 2015. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
"Statistics." Stop Now, Act Now: End Muslim Discrimination. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2016
Wormald, Benjamin. "Chapter 2: Religion and Politics." Pew Research Centers Religion Public
Life Project RSS. Pew Research Center, 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.