Post date: Dec 02, 2016 8:22:28 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/business/traveling-while-muslim-complicates-air-travel.html
Bias is institutionalized. Due to orientalist representations and unwarranted fears, Muslims are portrayed as threats. In media, Muslims are depicted as being violent and unjustly associated with terrorism. However, most victims of terrorist groups, such as ISIS, are Muslims. What needs to be known is that Muslims are being categorized with the oppressors and to do so we are ignoring the experiences of Muslims around the world who are being denied safety and security. Said’s “Orientalism” address the stagnancy of perception and how institutions perpetuate narratives that are meant to exclude. In relation to Said's piece and the NYT article, ideas, cultures, and histories cannot be understood or studied without configurations of power and complex hegemony also being studied. Instances of travel relay how such stereotypes and racisms impact daily life in forcing individuals to consider how faith is presented. Muslim people, due to racism and ignorance, are equated with the Middle East and are seen as representing violence. It becomes then that 'pure' and political knowledge cannot be distinguished due to intertextuality. Biases and common stereotypes that influence lived experiences are manifestations of hegemony and are unilaterally inhibiting. We must ask and continue to reflect on what sorts of knowledge is put to continuing an imperialist tradition and how orientalism continue to transmit or reproduce itself from one epoch to another.
Today’s policing of Muslim women’s choice in how to present beliefs has become more evident in airports, as airport screening can place a special burden on Muslim women whose religious beliefs dictate that they cover their heads. It is the right of all people to travel freely, and for individuals to have to modify their behavior or dress must be changed. As Asad declares, change must begin with education, re-learning how we categorize and anthropologically dictate who and what is meant to be studied. It is the forms of interest in the production of ‘knowledge’ of ‘the other’ that are intrinsic to various structures of power, and they differ according to historically changing systems of disciplines.
It is also important to recognize that Muslim people around the world are reclaiming identities and resiliency. There are many initiatives led by Muslim women that aim to empower women globally, Muslim women in particular, by highlighting the status of women elevated by Islam, beyond the boundaries of social dogmas.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-35403106
http://muslima.globalfundforwomen.org/content/technicolor-muslimah