http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlbN6EWUJNk
Many Americans have the thought in their head that Muslims are terrorists, unfair and oppressive to their wives, are not modern or universal, and are also violent. These characteristics have been labeled upon every Muslim individual. Unless you are Muslim, you wont see how difficult it can be. Every time a Muslim goes to the airport, he or she will be extensively searched, abused and harassed, just because of his or her religion. The labeling theory had caused many difficulties within the Muslim communities, during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Heartbroken Americans along with the media caused confusion and many hard times for Muslims. Women, in the middle of the streets in America, during this time were harassed and abused just because they wore a headscarf. Just because one group of Muslim extremists creates destruction to a number of different communities, doesn’t mean that every Muslim in the world is the same way. A Christian psychopath walks in to a movie theatre, shooting up the place, and it’s considered massive homicides. Let alone, if that same man grew his beard and labeled himself as a Muslim, the media would tear up the world causing an influx of frustration within the American society, publishing it as terrorism. A radical mind is the same throughout; religious beliefs are left out of it. As it is shown in the Quran, Islam is peace in different forms. In addition, it was against Islam to backbite, let alone terrorize people. In the most recent news story, a man went into a Sikh temple thinking that this was a mosque and shot and killed many people. A common misconception is that in a Muslim culture men often wear turbans, but in fact this is actually a part of the Sikh religion and also some parts of Afghanistan, which are Muslim.
All races are grouped with a description on how they should look or act based on stereotypes, and many individuals think and expect every single person in that certain group to act in a similar way to the image they have in their head. When a situation dealing with a Muslim individual occurs, a lot of people are quick to point figures at the whole Muslim community. It’s become that a lot of people aren’t able to pull apart a person from their group. For example, with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the whole Muslim community has been blamed and suffered consequences, such as being stopped more often in order to search their belongs, instead of blaming the people that performed the act. If one person is being stopped for search, every other person should be stopped as well. But we base everything on what we see first, and the stereotypes that people and the media have created. A handful of people that are the same skin color as you, or have the same religious beliefs, do not define who you are as a person. But it’s been that way, and won’t change until we drop all stereotypes.