What An Interesting Mustache, Mr. Trump - 984 Words

 ¨What an Interesting Mustache, Mr. Trump ¨ When Americans think of Muslims, most of us think of 9/11, the Paris attacks, and the war in the Middle East. Most of our generation has grown up with the War on Terrorism. We don t remember a time before  ¨Can Mr. Ahmed Come to the Security Office? ¨ and  ¨ISIS has killed another 400 People in an Attack Today†¦.† To us, the distrust and dislike of Muslims isn’t just normal, it’s commonplace. Americans took the 9/11 attacks personally while Muslims took the hit, with hate crimes still five times higher than pre-9/11 some fifteen years later (Washingtonpost.com). Islamophobia is so common that presidential candidates not only win supporters, but whole states with their racism and islamophobia. The†¦show more content†¦The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum believes that two out of every three Jews in Germany would be dead by the end of the Holocaust. As Americans, it’s easy for us to look at what happened in Germany and tell ourselves that it would never fly here and now. Americans also like to forget about slavery and Japanese internment camps, so it s not unprecedented that we are ignoring what we’re doing to Muslims now. Post 9/11, America started a war against Muslims for the actions of a few radical people. Since then, as previously stated, hate crime rates against Muslims are five times as high as they were pre-9/11. In a similarly frightening pattern, studies have found that hate crime rates go up after other radical Muslim attacks, like those seen in Paris or the San Bernardino (NBCNews.com). Using these attacks to justify islamophobia is unfortunately similar to the Germans using propaganda to spread the hate of Jewish people by playing off stereotypes. Every attack is another drop in the bucket of â€Å"Muslims are violent† while innocent people suffer for it. To people against Islam, every hijab is a cage, every mosque a tomb, and every attack a point proven. It’s easy to say that while the attacks and anti-Muslim mindset are awful, they will eventually blow over. People will stop thinking about it so much without a proper catalyst. For a good catalyst, we would need both an enemy, in this case the Islamic State, and a figurehead for the â€Å"good guys†.