The Media and Islamophobia
Since the attacks on 9/11, the media has framed Islam as an enemy of the United States. Between October of 2001 and January of 2010, there have been exactly 11 terrorist events by foreigners on U.S. soil (Powell, 2011). A.P. Schmid, a United Nations advisor who has studies a variety of definitions of terrorism, describes the heinous act as an anxiety inspiring method of repeated violent action where the direct targets of violence are not the main targets (Powell, 2011). Essentially, human victims of the aftermath would serve as message generators. Although Islam initially appeared on U.S. cable news networks because of their connections to oil, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and terrorism, the only knowledge we have regarding Muslims and Islam have dealt with oil control, war, and terrorism (Powell, 2011). As a result, our nominal understanding has led the West to fear these Middle Eastern countries without knowing anything about the people who live there. When the two planes hit the World Trade Center 15 years ago, the attacks acted like catalysts and turned our feelings of fear into a deep-set hatred towards the people of Islam.
In Framing Islam: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of Terrorism Since 9/11, Kimberly Powell claims that the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, changed the U.S. government’s handling of terrorism from a minor concern to a “War on Terror.” As media outlets reported on the attacks, the press internalized this type of government focus (Reese & Lewis 2009), and the animosity between the East and West grew. In a 2001 poll of Muslim Americans, 67% said the media grew more biased against Muslims after 9/11 (Council on American-Islamic Relations, 2002). Powell, along with other scholars, believes that some of the factors leading to this bias are the result of journalists, such as the ideologies and stereotypes of Muslims or the Middle East that journalists hold (Luyendijk, 2010). In an age when antagonisms are cast in cultural terms, “brown,” once the signifier of an exoticism, now represents a negative label (Powell 2011). Since the perpetrators of the attacks on 9/11 were Arab terrorists, Muslim brown “others” became the symbol of Islam to the agenda setters in media, thus becoming representative of Islam (Powell 2011). Over the past decade, this type of reporting has inevitably led to hate crimes and hostility towards Muslim-Americans.
A professor of Islamic History in Zagreb, Croatia, claims that most Western media outlets are using the September 11th events to capitalize on political gain and that these media depict Islam as “fundamentalism”, extremism” and “radicalism.” Recently, a CNN anchor asked Yasser Louati, a French anti-Islamophobia activist why no one within the Muslim community in France knew what these terrorists were up to, in regards to the attacks on Paris. Louati responded respectfully, saying the worlds 1.6 billion Muslims should not be held responsible for the actions of a few extremists and that “we cannot justify ourselves for the actions of someone who just claims to be Muslim.” Ignorant and inappropriate comments like these are the reason we should be so concerned that journalists are able to pass off casual bigotry as journalistic inquiry (Arana, 2015). According to data compiled by researchers, hate crimes have soared to their highest levels in 2016 since the aftermath of 9/11. This trend has alarmed hate crime scholars as well as law enforcement officials who have documented reports of several arsons at mosques, assaults, shootings and other threats of violence (Lichtblau, 2016). Islamophobia in media coverage follows a predictable cycle, so when someone commits an act of random violence and information is scarce, the warrantless speculation follows. For example, when CNN producers formed a panel discussion on whether Islam promotes violence, they weren’t merely “asking the question”; they were perpetuating prejudice (Lichtblau, 2016).
It is estimated that 1 percent of the population in the U.S. practices the Muslim faith (Pew Research Center) and 25 percent of the current population is comprised of native-born African American Muslims (Gallup & Tindongan 2009). Dominant cultures continually fail to recognize that Islamic peoples have had a long history in the U.S. After the attacks of Pearl Harbor in 1941 the U.S. turned against U.S citizens of Japanese descent and placed hundreds of families in remote, military like camps (Zinn, 2010). Professor Cynthia Tindongan notes the similarity in reactions after the attacks on 9/11 when Muslims and Arabs were harassed, attacked, and arrested. The United States tendency to react this way against their own citizens in the face of danger is concerning. Stereotypes and misunderstandings also impact the identity crisis of Muslim youths as they navigate through their U.S. school experience (Tindongan, 2011). As if high school isn’t hard enough, this sort of racial injustice projected onto Muslim adolescents in the post 9/11 era critically affects their lives. The media coverage of the attacks fed into Islamophobic hysteria, precipitated the “War on Terror,” and created an opportunity for “othering Muslims and has conflated Islam with fundamentalist Islamic movements and terrorism” (Tindongan 2011).
The most frustrating and concerning thing about media coverage of terrorist attacks throughout the years is the fact that the reporting does not get any better. It was best said by Senior Media Editor of The Huffington Post Gabriel Arana, “it’s not like news organizations ask the dumb questions and get them out of the way. We don’t get smarter, better or more informed. When terrorism strikes, the campaign of misinformation repeats itself, time and again.” Islamophobic media coverage is unfair and until journalists realize that news is not just about getting the best “scoop”, terrorist organizations have won. Hate crimes and Islamophobia need to stop and we need to come together as a nation and protect our Muslim friends and neighbors.
References
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