Joselin Bautista

Professor Jennifer Rodrick

English 115

October 19, 2018

Muslims

Muslims have always been seen in a dangerous way. They have always been seen as

terrorist. This leads to them not being able to be comfortable in America. A lot of people have

the mindset that they are all bad. Muslims do face discrimination every day in America

especially those who study their religion, Islam. Muslims have been struggling every day to fit in

because of discrimination, trouble going on planes without people being scared of them, and the

president wanting them out of America.

Discrimination is a big factor and a big effect on Muslims. This is due to the fact that a

lot of people do not like Muslims religion and what they have to say. A lot of people have

different opinions about Muslims and most of them have the mindset that they are all terrorist.

This leads to people having the thought of them being involved in certain things. For example, in

a YouTube video by “TheBlaze” called “Millennials Moment: The Evil of Islamic Terror” talks

about an 8-year-old murdered by an Islamic terrorist. The video says, “An 8-year-old is

murdered by a radical Islamic terrorist, and we’re still denying the existence of evil?”. She then

continues to say, “ An article by Muniba Saleem called, “Exposure to Muslims in Media and

Support for Public Policies Harming Muslims” said, across three studies, we tested the short-

term and long-term effects of news portraying Muslims as terrorists on Americans’ support for

public policies harming Muslims domestically and internationally … Study 2 revealed that

exposure to news portraying Muslims as terrorists is positively associated with support for public
policies that harm Muslims domestically and internationally; this effect was fully mediated by

perceptions of Muslims as aggressive.” What Muniba Saleem is saying here is that one of the

studies showed that once the news portrays a Muslim as terrorist, people think they are all the

same, but that can’t always be the case because every person is different from one another.

Muslims have always had trouble with being at peace in an airplane due to the fact that

most people don’t like that they’re speaking another language. Everyone says that if you’re in

America you have to speak English. Sometimes this leads to people being scared of them

because of what they see on the news. In fact, there has been past events where Muslims have

been kicked out of airplanes. This happens because they happen to be talking their own language

and Americans don’t like it and end up complaining and saying inaaproriate things. This then

leads to a much bigger problem than it actually has to be. An article name, “U.S. Muslims Say

Terror Fears Hamper Their Right to Travel” by Neil MacFARQUHAR talks about how Muslims

are scared when they travel because they feel like they don’t have the same rights as others. This

author talks about how Muslims feel once they go on a plane by saying that, “The delays,

humiliation and periodic roughing up have prompted some American Muslims to avoid traveling

as much as possible. Some even skip meeting anyone at the airport for fear of a nasty encounter

with a law-enforcement officer.” Muslims fear going in an airport because they feel like their

rights are going to be violated. They fear for what’s someone is going to think of them,

especially law enforcement because they think they can act against them. In a YouTube video

named, “Peace House”, they had people react to comments under a video that was titled “Islamic

burned this”. A certain comment by Cynthia Gallagher said, “Burn them all down and deport

them all!”, one person who read this comment said, “I was born here where am I going to be

deported to, the hospital?” Others said they’re from New York and others said they’re American
citizens. What I think they mean by saying this is that not everyone is originally from the middle

east. A lot of Muslims were actually born in America but that’s just the way they identify

themselves.

The president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, does not want Muslims to

be in America anymore, he wants them out. He says that since they’re immigrants, they have to

leave. In an article by The Washington post named, “‘I think Islam hates us’: A timeline of

Trump’s comments about Islam and Muslims “On Fox Business, Trump says he would

“certainly look at” the idea of closing mosques in the United States. Nov. 16, 2015: Following a

series of terrorist attacks in Paris, Trump said on MSNBC that he would “strongly consider”

closing mosques. “I would hate to do it, but it's something that you're going to have to strongly

consider because some of the ideas and some of the hatred — the absolute hatred — is coming

from these areas,” he said.” The Washington post is telling us what Donald Trump has said about

Muslims in past situations. They said that he has said that he will soon be having all the Muslims

away because he’s practically seeing all Muslims the same. For example, he sees one Muslim be

called a “terrorist”, but not everyone has the same personality as one another.

In conclusion, we have seen a few factors of how Muslims are viewed in America. Most

Americans are judging by past news and what they think of them but they don’t really take the

time to noticed that they are not all the same. The world portrays them as terrorist because of

past event. A lot of news articles are saying that Muslims are terrorist and that they are making

this world a bad place and that they shouldn’t be here, but how does one know that they are

Muslims, just because they say they are doesn’t mean that they’re telling the truth it can also

mean that they want the world to think of Muslims in that way. It may be like this or it may not

but we all know that not all Muslims are the same. Muslims may feel like they can’t fit in
because of how a lot of people see them but we are all humans and we all make mistakes or in

other words, a lot of different ethnicity have at least one person who is making others fell terror

in this place we call America.

 Work Cited

Johnson, Jenna and Abigail Hauslohner. “‘I think Islam hates us’: A timeline of Trump’s

comments about Islam and Muslims” The Washington Post, 20 May 2017. Politics,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/20/i-think-islam-hates-us-a-

timeline-of-trumps-comments-about-islam-and-muslims/?utm_term=.a60a97646c63.

MacFARQUHAR, Neil. “U.S. Muslims Say Terror Fears Hamper Their Right to Travel.” New
York Times (1923-Current File), 2006, p. A1Schmuck, Desirée, et al.

“Negative Stereotypical Portrayals of Muslims in Right‐Wing Populist Campaigns: Perceived

Discrimination, Social Identity Threats, and Hostility Among Young Muslim Adults.” Journal of

Communication, vol. 67, no. 4, 2017, pp. 610–634.

“Muslims Read Hate Comments *Original*” Youtube, uploaded by Peace House, 20 May 2015,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DopY5N3JeYA.

“Millennial Moment: The Evil of Islamic Terror”, Youtube, uploaded by TheBlaze, 23 May

2017,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzvZw6Vyr2o&index=2&list=PLbTta9mNF3hxZ3biQWKS

vXNMDH76tPDo0&t=0s.