Creating a Muslim Registry and Stereotyping Terror Is Dangerously Un-American | Amani Al-Khatahtbeh
Big Think
2018-06-06
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Certain politicians in the U.S. have relied on ignorance and racist stereotypes to empower their own platforms, the cost of which comes on the backs of people who are already marginalized. Times of great fear can lead to greater oppression. For Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, the prospect of a Muslim registry is obscene, and it's slippery slope to something much worse. Amani's book is "Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age" (https://goo.gl/pRuIpz).
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Transcript - To me terrorist means a person who incites terror. It's very simple. I think that Isis fighters are terrorists just as much as I believe that white mass shooters are terrorists. However, in the media's definition of terrorism the word is only ever applied when it comes to a brown person or a person of Muslim faith. And a person is only ever identified for their religion when it comes to a terrorist attack if they happen to be Muslim. And when we do that inevitably we are linking terrorism with Islam and Islam with terrorism and we make this common assumption that all Muslims are terrorists or that all terrorists are Muslim. And that, of course, is an impossible generalization it to make.
When you put into perspective that there are 1.8 billion Muslims on the planet it is impossible to say that they're all terrorists and it's actually a very dehumanizing thing to try to categorize them in that way. To put that into context there are 2.2 billion Christians in the world so you have a 2.2 billion Christians and 1.8 billion Muslims. So just as ridiculous it would be to make one assumption or one generalization about the entire Christian population that's just as ridiculous as it would be to make that assumption about the entire Muslim people. And yet when you ask a common American on the street what they think of when they hear the word terrorist, of course, the first image that comes to mind will be of the stereotypical person of Muslim faith. Read Full Transcript Here: https://goo.gl/Gf4S9A.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/amani-al-khatahtbeh-on-the-muslim-registry-and-terrorism
Follow Big Think here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
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Transcript - To me terrorist means a person who incites terror. It's very simple. I think that Isis fighters are terrorists just as much as I believe that white mass shooters are terrorists. However, in the media's definition of terrorism the word is only ever applied when it comes to a brown person or a person of Muslim faith. And a person is only ever identified for their religion when it comes to a terrorist attack if they happen to be Muslim. And when we do that inevitably we are linking terrorism with Islam and Islam with terrorism and we make this common assumption that all Muslims are terrorists or that all terrorists are Muslim. And that, of course, is an impossible generalization it to make.
When you put into perspective that there are 1.8 billion Muslims on the planet it is impossible to say that they're all terrorists and it's actually a very dehumanizing thing to try to categorize them in that way. To put that into context there are 2.2 billion Christians in the world so you have a 2.2 billion Christians and 1.8 billion Muslims. So just as ridiculous it would be to make one assumption or one generalization about the entire Christian population that's just as ridiculous as it would be to make that assumption about the entire Muslim people. And yet when you ask a common American on the street what they think of when they hear the word terrorist, of course, the first image that comes to mind will be of the stereotypical person of Muslim faith. Read Full Transcript Here: https://goo.gl/Gf4S9A.
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