Ms. Rebecca Chai
English 3 Honors
26 March 2014
“All men are created equal and are endowed by their creator the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. In these United States of America, men and women should not be judged by the religion they practice but by the content of their character. Unfortunately, in the post 9/11 era, American Muslims have been denied access to this “promised land”-- subjected to derision in these “Glorious” United States of America. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, perspectives on Islam have undergone dramatic changes, with 43% of all Americans harboring prejudiced feelings toward Islam. From this, the general perception on Islam has turned to unfounded validation of stereotyping and racial profiling (Gallup,1).
On September 11, 2001, a total of 19 …show more content…
Many American Muslims have come to complain of “random screenings” that seem to only target either Muslims or Sikhs, who are commonly mistaken for Muslims. What is found ironic is that through Al-Qaeda’s actions, numerous Islamic ideals and laws were completely violated. Despite this commonly known fact, American Muslims who also oppose Al-Qaeda are persecuted on a daily basis, all due to one characteristic both groups share: culture. When the general populus perspective is taken into account, Islam is held to be the most negatively viewed religion, with 31% of all American citizens holding Islam to be “not favorable at all”. Only 9% of the American people consider Islam to be “very favorable” (Gallup). When Islam is relatively compared to two other major and universal religions such as Christianity and Buddhism, statistic polls report that those who opted to complete the survey held about twice as many prejudiced feelings towards Islamics as opposed to members belonging to the other two religions