I waited for the E train with an old friend when someone walking in our direction muttered, “You terrorist.” He then looked straight at me and said, “You should be glad you don’t look Muslim.” I wasn’t really sure of what he was referring to until I looked at my friend and realized the difference between us: she wore a hijab and I didn’t. I was only 12 at the time, and while the man’s comment brought on a false sense of safety, I was also scared for my friend. He judged us based off of a common preconception of what a terrorist looks like, something that occurs quite often in the United States.
Merriam Webster defines terrorism as “the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion.” However, with 9/11 came tensions regarding Islam, and people’s Islamophobia caused them to associate terrorism with Islam. While their fear was understandable, it approached absurdity as Muslims were accused of terrorist acts simply because of their name or how they look. Terrorism became “the systematic use of terror” by Muslims. Terrorists who were not Muslim were said to be affected by some mental illness in order to bring sympathy to their situation, separating them from terrorism and reinforcing the idea that only Muslims can be terrorists. People often perpetuate these ideas without realizing it because equating Islam with terrorism centers their fear on one group of people, thus making it easier for them to go about their day. This holds true in situations such as those of the boy with the homemade alarm clock, the Charleston shooting gunman, the El Paso and Dayton shooters, and many more.
Discrimination based on religion starts as early as grade school. In 2015, 14-year-old Muslim Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for possessing a homemade clock that his school deemed suspicious-looking. His family was forced to move to Qatar for nine months to avoid excessive attention, but as soon as they came back to Texas, reporters swarmed Ahmed. Big news corporations like The Washington Post and The New York Times nicknamed him “Clock Boy.” Only a freshman in high school, Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for what authorities later called a “hoax bomb." His invention was quite clearly a clock, and as show-and-tell was a common event in his engineering class, it was obvious that Ahmed’s arrest was due to his Islamic background. Ahmed’s family filed a lawsuit against the city, school, and the police, but Judge Sam Lindsay dismissed the lawsuit as it did not “contain factual allegations." This action further illustrates how the authorities portrayed themselves as innocent even after traumatizing a young boy who just wanted to show his invention to his teachers. They were quick to assume the worst because prior events like 9/11 and attacks from terrorist organizations had shaped their perception of danger and instilled in them a fear of Muslims. Unfortunately, Muslim children younger than Ahmed face this type of discrimination on a daily basis. They are forced to grow up at a young age because of the severe accusations placed against them. Ahmed’s situation was clearly not one that posed a danger to anyone around him, but his religious background caused authorities to view him as a criminal instead of as the young boy he is.
In the same way that people are quick to blame Muslims for a crime, they also look for any way to justify worse crimes committed by white men. Ahmed Mohammed was called a terrorist for inventing a homemade clock, but Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old white male responsible for the Charleston church shooting, was only held accountable for a hate crime. In 2015, Roof killed nine people at Emanuel AME Church, but the word “terrorism” was not used once in media coverage. Instead of vilifying Roof, former FBI agent Jonathan Gilliam stated that he likely “has some mental issues,” showing the power of whiteness in America. If Roof had been a Muslim or a man of Middle Eastern descent, news stations would have been quick to paint him as a terrorist. However, as a white male, Roof was humanized and became a so-called victim of mistreatment and inadequate mental health resources. Instead of accepting that terrorism extends beyond just Muslims, Americans sympathize with dangerous people like Roof. While Ahmed Mohammed has to live knowing that his religion makes him as a terrorist, Dylann Roof lives knowing that his race is the only thing keeping him from being labeled as the same.
Some may argue that the depiction of the Charleston church shooting is only one instance, but coverage of the 2019 El Paso and Dayton shootings further shows that justification of white terrorism is a persistent issue. After the mass shooting that killed 20 people and wounded 26 more at a Walmart in El Paso, Governor Greg Abbott attributed the terror to mental illness in his statement: “Mental health is a large contributor to any type of violence or shooting violence.” After the Dayton shooting less than 24 hours later, President Donald Trump called it “a mental illness problem” (Kimball). In both occasions, two things were true: one, the shooter was white; two, the shooter was not Muslim. Thus, although their acts were those of terror, the shooters did not fit the description of an “Islamic terrorist.” Governor Abbott and President Trump were well aware of these facts, and their hesitation to label white males as terrorists was telling. In a nation where even the president justifies white terrorism using mental illness, it is not surprising that the public does the same.
The truth is that the association of terrorism with Islam distorts not only the definition of terrorism, but the beliefs of Islam. A famous line of the Qur’an states that when one “kills a person...it is as though he has killed all mankind." Like other religions, Islam is about maintaining peace and morality in human beings. It is true that terrorists will often use religion for their own purposes, but this is true of all religions. When the American people scapegoat Islam and equate it with terrorism, they minimize the atrocious acts of terrorism committed by people who have no relation to Islam. When these atrocious acts are justified by mental illness, it reinforces the idea that only Muslims are the enemy. To break away from this narrowmindedness that perpetuates the systematic discrimination of Muslims, we must embrace true Americanness and learn to accept that someone who looks different is not someone we must fear.
Written in December 2019