"Those who do not remember the past, are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana
America has been guilty of discriminating certain types of people during the course of history. We have discriminated Irish immigrants, Jews, African Americans, Japanese Americans, homosexuals, etc.) However, we have grown to accept these people -- no, "tolerance" is a better term because equality is a term used in our Constitution. As our founding fathers wrote "all men are created equal." However, if equality is a priority in America, then why are Muslims getting so much hate?
Islamophobia is the new hate in the United States. This is the hate, prejudice and fear toward the Islamic religion. With the recent tragedy that has struck Orlando, as well as San Bernardino and Paris, Islam has been to blame for these acts of evil. Donald Trump, the leading candidate of the Republican Party of this year's election, has targeted Syrian refugees and other Islamic communities as a result of these attacks. In a speech he gave on June 13, the day after the Orlando shooting, he recalled his proposal to suspend all immigrants coming from countries with history of terrorism, (specifically countries in the Middle East.) This anti-Muslim rhetoric, contributed to his lead at the top of the polls for the election. Because of that I ask one thing: Why? Why are 43 percent of Americans, up in arms against Islam? My answer is: because fear fuels prejudice.
There is no doubt that America is scared of ISIS. We were scared of Al-Quaeda after the events of 9/11,its only natural to fear the inevitable, and unpredictable coming of another tragic event. Its okay to be scared, we should be scared. If we weren't scared, we would never have taken military action to fight the war in Iraq in the first place. However, since we are scared, we tend to avoid what we are afraid of: Muslims. As a result, we have the Republican Party, specifically Donald Trump, campaigning to enable screenings of Muslims entering our country, if not banning them all together. This wouldn't be a problem if he wasn't targeting only the Muslim community. That is like stopping an African-American man on the streets of New York, just because he's black.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, there was a brief but large spike in hate crimes against Muslims; with 481 crimes being reported. While this number has dropped by half, it has remained significantly higher since before 9/11.This spike, is a reflection of how the American people reacted to the knowledge that the men who hijacked the four planes that tragic day, were in fact Muslim radicals. On June 14, Hillary Clinton, former New York Senator, and leading candidate of the Democratic Party, stated in her speech, "Hate crimes against American Muslims and mosques have tripled since Paris and San Bernardino."
This statement was confirmed when research conducted by FBI and Hate Study at California State university showed that between the Paris Bombings and the Orlando shooting, 38 cases of anti-Muslim crimes were reported in over an eight month period. Brian Levin, a criminologist at the University has also stated, "“The terrorist attacks, coupled with the ubiquity of these anti-Muslim stereotypes seeping into the mainstream, have emboldened people to act upon this fear and anger." So not only is our own fear and anger contributing to the discrimination against Islam, but these terrorist attacks have contributed to giving Americans the reason to hate Muslims.
The Muslim population is about 1.6 billion people in the world. Those that sympathize with ISIS is estimated between 80,000 and 100,000. That is 0.00625 percent of the entire Muslim population. Bernie Sanders, who -- much to my personal disappointment -- dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination last week, said in response to the backlash of the Orlando shooting, "We know that one hateful person committed the atrocity in Orlando, not an entire people or an entire religion. More than any other people on Earth, it is the Muslim people who have been hurt by ISIS by the hundreds of thousands." We are blaming everyone for one person's action, and that is not what America is all about.
In my eyes, Muslims are victims just like we are. The acts of evil committed by and through the influence of ISIS has given the Islamic faith a bad name. As a result, 80 percent of the media has expressed negative commentary towards Muslims, and people are agreeing with it.
When Donald Trump is saying we should make America great again, but how? Is hatred going to make America great? When our ancestors migrated from their home countries to seek a better life? Why can't these refugees be permitted the same? What about our neighbors, our friends, students of this campus. Should we hate them for other people's actions? Just because they share the same heritage? Why are we allowing fear to justify the hatred of a single group, that we are seeking to blame because of an extremist organization in which not every Muslim is a part of? The first three words of the Constitution are, "We the people." Not, we the whites -- or we, the Christians -- or we, the Americans.
Muslims are people, and they have been reduced to their heritage because of ISIS and our own fear of ISIS. This is not what America is about, it is about Democracy, equality and opportunity.
I suggest we heed Santayana's warning because we are committing the same sins of discrimination we have done to many cultures since America became a country. I thought we were better then this. Hate does not make America great.
