d i s c r i m e i n a t i o n

A Muslimah shares a piece of her college paper

O You who believe! Be upholders of justice, bearing witness for God alone, even against yourselves or your parents and relatives. Whether they are rich or poor,Allah is well able to look after them. Do not follow your own desires and deviate from the truth. If you twist or turn away, Allah is aware of what you do. (Qur’an, 4:135)

While I was browsing through the various topics, naturally I had a lot of issues to choose from.  Trying to narrow down the topics was hard, since we all have had some sort of acquaintance with a number of topics within my field.  After reading through the books on discrimination, I realized this is the topic I wanted to choose.

Although I was very young when Operation Desert Storm occurred, my family remembers it vividly.  During the days after it began, neighbors would release their dogs from their leashes when they would see my uncle coming home from work three miles away, letting their dog’s chase him.  Being an environmentalist, riding his bicycle to and from work became a problem, more so when boys in the neighborhood would intimidate him on their bicycles and stone throws.  For obvious reasons, until the war was over, my uncle felt safest at home, and stopped going out unless he was accompanied with my parents or other siblings, so as to create group strength.  The negative reactions didn’t stop there though, as we would leave the house, and return to find our windows had been egged.  As the war came to an end, so did the hateful acts.

Then the attacks on September 11^th took place, and with due anticipation the reaction was negative, but surprisingly it only lasted a minimal time.  On September 12^th, I received a call from a former home economics teacher whose classes I hadn’t attended for several months, inquiring whether I would like to attend a class that she was holding that day.  I decided to attend, figuring it would be nice to be with others and being American myself I shared in the pain.  To my shock, when I got there, I was faced with questions like “Is your father strict?” and “are you forced to do things you don’t like?” in front of others by the teacher.

Needless to say, being thirteen years old, I was in my teenage mode, where nobody could force me into anything, so naturally I adamantly defended my clothing and parents.  During the immediate days following the attacks, Muslims were not the only group to be targeted, as the Sikh community found themselves under attack due to their similar appearance.  A Sacramento temple had reported vandalism, Sikh schoolchildren were harassed by classmates, and other Sikhs had been verbally threatened. (Stammer, 2001) To my relief, the people around me quickly realized that not all Muslims shared the same views as those who perpetrated the tragic events, and I was less discriminated against.

Learning more about what causes discrimination and hate helped me understand the perspective of the opposite person.

It also opened my eyes in the respect that I realized how close minded we cause ourselves to become at times.

In order to live with the world around us that is positive and more peaceful it is logically expected that we need to look at ourselves, and fix the slip ups we constantly make.

Instead of living in our boxes which are tightly shut, we need to realize it is safe to take a step out of the box and embrace the world around us. Share our core Islamic values in a manner that shares our true American Muslim identity. Share our concerns without compromising neither our religion nor the great ideals of America….

Do you have a story you would like to share?

Or are you tucked away in a cute little well cushioned box?

As always, comments welcome