A Disturbing Amount of Hatred...

Yes it is frustrating to be from a place that is supposed to embody freedom and equality, yet have some ignorant, ass-backwards citizens.

 

Unfortunately a lot of Islamophobia is aimed at women, it's sexism and racism combined. People are ignorant, and it doesn't help that hateful attitudes are instilled in people by default. It's about control really. Horrible.

 

There are people (thugs) out there who will hate people just because they are different, I thinks it's awful that people hate on people and that I feel bad for Muslims who suffer Islamophobia because idiots just think that they are all terrorists when most the Muslims I've met are nice people. However there is a difference between Islamophobia and disagreeing with what Islam as a force does in the world. Sometimes people use the term Islamphobia to stop people criticizing the action done in the name of Islam. For example in some Islam countries gay people are executed. I find this disgusting.

 

So in my younger days I bought into all of this anti-Muslim hatred.

The turing point came in college. I was taking a class, and there was this guy I chatted with before class every day. Nice guy, and I enjoyed chatting with him. One day he mentioned he was Muslim. Here was this guy just like me, and he is the thing I hate. That opened my eyes.

Later I got a job with a large multi-national corporation. I worked with people all of the world. I learned, that people in other countries are just like us. They just want to be safe, raise their families, and go about their lives.

Most of this comes from ignorance. Mine sure did.

 

islamaphobia is well just stupid,a lot of great inventions come from that region in the world. its a direct result of western media, everytime something bad happens the press hound the incident like someone's cured cancer. all the publicity just inspires more. i get pissed off when people say it was good thing that osama bin laden is dead, if america had any proof Osama bin laden had ever killed one person!! they would have taken him to trial. the only thing he ever did was say 9/11 was a good thing, i don't say that was a good thing. but did we really need the ridiculous war on terror, which just incites more people to hate america from around the world, don't get wrong the uk is just as bad we went along with it.
just my two cent
p.s America shoots a religious leader with no proof he ever harmed anyone who only said a few bad things about America, and people cheer and cry on national television and are thankful for it, now that's just sick

 

You know, a bit ago I was going to respond to this thread and say, "Yes, this disturbs me greatly. In fact, if I were to advise a Muslim about coming to America, knowing some of the bigots I know... I'd say stay the hell away from small towns. Just for your own safety. That, is how worrying and disturbing I find this trend of Islamophobia to be."


Now, though, after just seeing some of the Fox News clips the Daily Show played in this episode: April 24, 2013 - Bassem Youssef - The Daily Show With Jon Stewart - Full Episode Video | Comedy Central (obviously I don't watch Fox News if I can help it and this was my first time hearing these disgusting opinions voiced over Fox), I am now downright terrified for any person that could be remotely construed as "being a Muslim." There are a sizeable minority of people that watch the garbage known as Fox News on a daily basis, and that signals to me that there are a sizeable minority that probably carry those views around with them ...


It just terrifies me. I dearly hope we don't see anything worse than the incident in Michigan of a woman in Islamic garb being punched, terrible though it was in it's own right - the hatred being promoted in certain conservative news outlets has me worried for the potential of something even worse happening :/ .....

 

I know! It's so stupid! I have good friends who are Muslim and are just as disgusted with the actions of the fanatics as I am. It's not as bad where I live, where the bigots hate something until they get close to it and think a little (with the exception of homosexuals, they hate em no matter what)

And I agree with Lovely, I'd tell them not to come to America because of the crap we're doing.

 

Is Fox News that stupid? Since he's an American citizen, if we didn't read him his Miranda Rights, everything he would of said would of been thrown out and he could call for a mistrial. I wished I hand more than two hands because they're getting tired do to me facing palming so much at that.

Then that blond bimbo had gall to saw the mother should be arrested for wearing her hijab? Well I want to tell her that she should be arrested for wearing all that make-up, because girl, you look like a prostitute.

If there's one thing I hate in world, it's hate.

 

Before saying anything, I do agree with the intention of this thread-- learn, don't judge. However, there does seem to be a crazy amount of hate from predominantly Muslim countries. Maybe it's my ignorance of real issues over there, but there is SO. MUCH. CARNAGE. We have a deadly bombing in Boston, our country loses its shit. There's a bombing somewhere over there? Hardly even makes the news, people are so used to the violence. Add that to the corporal punishment laid out in sharia law, and it's just a brutal system.

I'm all for reducing bigotry and hatred, but that is a two-sided coin. A disproportionate number of terrorist attacks are perpetrated by radical Muslim groups, while the worst Christians can produce are the WBC and Branch Davidians, neither of which were/are a fraction as influential as Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Can they quit killing everybody first and stop perpetuating bad stereotypes?

 

thats a really good point and I've never looked at it like that. The extremists of USA's dominant religions are no where near the same level as islamic extremists.

 

It is definitely frustrating and sad. My heart breaks every time I read a racist/sexist/homophobe etc.. comments on the internet and websites.

 

Which news site was it? I don't know where you're from, but you need to be aware that a lot of "news" sites here are just flat out right wing propaganda. Drudge, Newsmax, and World Net Daily come to mind immediately.

 

Such is the US, though. Having said that, there are plenty of US news websites I know that intended for the more intelligent of Americans, not the ignorant and bigoted.

I've only ever met one racist person, who happened to be my Uncle. Through unusual circumstances, he became homeless and I offered him a room at my house. He said something quite awful while watching TV once and he got a warning. The next time, he was gone. It's not as common in the UK I don't think, but they exist everywhere.

 

While I agree with your main point, you're wrong here.

Atheists as a group have a lot less in common than any religion. All we have in common is what we don't believe, not what we do. Whereas Muslims, like Christians, have a few beliefs that they all share (eg existence of one God whose nature is considered good).

 

Oh, that's easy. It's because the few you see on news are representative of those who fall under the group, so therefore, you must make up your opinion of most because of few. Don't question it or you're probably one of them. That's why...

 

This post makes me want to cry.

"The worst Christians can produce are the WBC and Branch Davidians". Mate, where were you on 22/07/11? And Kony? And the ~3 000 or so killed during the Troubles? I hate to sound so rude, but please get your facts straight before you start unintentionally watering down things that Christians have done as this is exactly how some Muslims become perceived as being extremists simply because they are Muslims. And whilst the terrorism there was religiously motivated, it's generally seen as psychologically/ethnically/ethnic-politically motivated respectively rather than fundamental flaws in Christianity. The same goes for Islam. I'm not trying to attack either religion here and the "Christian" part is kind of incidental.

The fact you've ignored these events (admittedly I'm not sure how big an event the Troubles would be considered across the pond) is telling. This is undoubtedly because when you think about them you don't automatically think "they're Christian acts of terrorism". You just think "they're acts of terrorism". Meanwhile, the 'Muslim' element of Al Qaeda terrorism is something that is focussed upon unnecessarily. If we're going to criticise a group of people; which I think can be done fairly; then we need to recognise how we might perceive things according to who we are and where we come from.

"There's a bombing somewhere over there? Hardly makes the news". Whilst this could be down to a normalisation of violence, it could also be down to the media you're exposed to being insular as hell. Sure, the Boston Bombings were all over the news and any terrorist attacks occurring in the Middle East and Asia probably weren't reported very widely. But how much did you hear about (I hate to play the numbers game here) the earthquake that killed nearly 200 people in China or the Bangladesh factory collapsed that killed nearly 400 within the 10 days that followed? Not much right? Now is this because of it's normal for such devastating disasters to occur or is it because of selective reporting of what is most relevant to you?

It's true that many Muslim-majority countries are rather far down the Global Peace Index. But equally, many of them are non-democratic and/or very poor; Qatar is the richest and perhaps not coincidentally one of the most peaceful countries in the world whilst Indonesia and Tunisia are democracies, the latter newly so, and also considered more peaceful than your own country. All three are Muslim and the vast majority of Muslim terrorism (as opposed to all-out revolution) occurs in Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iraq. My point here is that there are other factors at work here and that you can't tarnish every Islam country with the same brush of being riddled with violence... if this were the case then maybe I would think there was something 'wrong' with Islam.

So I'm not trying to suggest that one society/country/form-of-government/ideology works as well as every other (but to play devil's advocate, who are we to determine which system works best?): your point about Sharia law does raise a point but I don't consider myself sufficiently informed to make a judgement about it. And yes, the best solution would be to 'quit killing each other'.

What I am trying to say is that the bad stereotypes mostly come from the way in which Islam is perceived and not from the way Islam actually is. Equivocating the actions of Al Qaeda to the foundations of Islam and generalising their membership to the general Muslim population is as bad as saying that every Christian is on the verge of being Anders Breivik or something.

Again, I realise that you probably don't have bad intentions and there are far more, less reasonable opinions in the world, but it's nevertheless a damaging post as that is where the misunderstandings arise and it is something I thought I needed to address. I see you recognised Al Qaeda as being radical and that is something that must always be bore in mind.

 

I was actually speaking more towards small-town America. In cities, progressive areas, and college towns, I think anyone of any ethnicity or religious practice will be fine.

But small-town, middle-America..... with some of the bigotry I've heard... It's kind of like being a black person in certain areas of the South back fifty years ago or so. For your own safety, please avoid those areas! Because, oy vey, the shit I've heard dribble from some people's mouth's....

 

Very! I'm Catholic, not Muslim, but I find that absolutely disgusting.