Society Makes Muslims "Invisible"

Society Makes Muslims "Invisible"

 

We, as a natural human being, have a sense of logic called judging. Judging other people is a common thing to do and to see nowadays, regardless of their understanding and knowing people’s backgrounds. The consequence is that certain people become invisible to other people, meaning that people who are invisible are meant not to be existed. If they do exist in communities or societies, they will be automatically labeled as dangerous to other people. Muslims for example, due to the media that pictures Muslims and/or portray people who believe in any kind of Muslim activities as terrorist, the media creates an “untrue” norm about Muslims and plant it inside of our mind. Muslims become an invisible narrative until now due to the misunderstanding of their religion from other people. Since most people believe that Muslim is a terrorist religion, people who believe in Muslim force themselves to be silent.

People are mistaken Muslims as terrorist and therefore, the incorrect, inexact definition of Muslim has spread everywhere, including high schools. When I was in high school, I had Chinese class. My teacher, who was extremely strict, believed that Muslim is a terrorist religion. When someone talked about religion, especially about Muslim, he would stop teaching for a while and yell at the student who started the conversation. He would then say, “If you say Muslim, you’re a terrorist.” I was shocking for a while, then a remained silent. I have experienced and heard people put Muslim people down because of the rumor from the media. Just like my Chinese teacher, he’s the reason of why Muslim people become invisible and they rather choose to be silent instead of explaining the true definition of Muslim. Muslim people are oppressed by society who doesn’t accept who they are, yet the society believes the quote that says “be who you are.”

People tend not to realize that not all Muslims are terrorists, and not all terrorists are Muslims. According to FBI database, 6% of the terrorists are Muslim. Everyone can be a terrorist regardless of their religion, race, and gender. Again, based of the FBI database, the highest percentage of people who commit terrorism is Latinos. The percentage doesn’t make people to change their mind that there are some other races or religions that also commit terrorism. I’m not trying to move and shift the word terrorist from Muslim to Latinos, people need to understand that terrorist can be everyone, not only a certain group.

Muslim people are actually the opposite of what the media has pictured them. They are actually pleasant, friendly, and intelligent. Due to the strong belief of their religion, Muslim has taught them to become generous, acceptable, and grateful. Some people might not able to see their personality as what I just described, and that’s because they are stranger. People shouldn’t judge other people based on what they see from the outside, but based on what they see from the inside.