Final Draft
Religious Discrimination in United States
Religious discrimination is the biggest social issue in the USA. Since the 9/11 attacks Sikh’s have been tortured and treated really badly only because of their appearance. Arabs and Muslims are also tortured because of the religion they belong to. People should not insult other people without even knowing about their background. People should try to get to know about other person’s background before coming into any conclusion, he might be the best person they have ever met. The U.S. should abolish the practice of practice of profiling based on appearance at government office, schools, private offices etc.
Sikhism is the 5th largest religion in the world, but many people don’t know about Sikhism. Many people mistake Sikhs for terrorists due to their turbans. Sikhism is a monotheistic religion originating from Punjab, India. Sikhs do not cut their hair, and proudly wear turban as part of their religious and cultural heritage. It’s been about 13 years since 9/11 attack happened, but its affects can still be seen in modern USA. There are still many cases reported every year of killing of innocent people that are mistaken as terrorists. The Sikh Coalition, the group created after the ill-fated 9/11, said that almost 900 incidents have been reported in which American Sikhs are bullied and killed since 9/11. Just after an hour of 9/11 attack, Sikhs in New York were harassed, assaulted and beaten with bats. In fact, Muslims and Hindus were also tortured and killed after 9/11, and till today there are cases of bullying Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in almost the whole America. During the weekend of ill-fated 9/11, Balbir Singh Sodhi, an Arizona Sikh, was gunned down wh...
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...According to this report, the most important reason of bullying is the absence of Sikhs in school textbooks due to which not everybody know about Sikhs.
The heartless attack of 9/11 was an attack not just on America, but it was an attack on humanity. Humanity has been battered not only because of what these terrorists do, but also as a result of hate crimes against Sikh and others. Such crime is of serious magnitude when hardworking, law-abiding people are beaten, harassed and even murdered only because of their look or religion. There is a really very high need to abolish all these discriminatory acts. The people who attack innocent people without any reason are not less than terrorists. The killing of Balbir Singh Sodhi without any reason is an example of worst cases happened after 9/11 attack. These discriminatory acts are still happening in America.
On September 15th 2001, 4 days after the worst attack on American soil, a Sikh owner of a Chevron Gas station in a Phoenix suburb was murdered by a gunman. This was one of the first major cases of violence against Sikh-American in wake of the attacks. The 42 year old gunman Frank Roque killed 49 year old Balbir Singh Sodhi because he was lashing out at "Arabs" after watching repeated footage of World Trade Center attacks on television. When Mr. Roque was being arrested he repeatedly shouted "I stand for America all the way." NewsFeed Timeline A History of Violence against Sikhs in the Wake of 911 Comments. (2012). Retrieved from http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/06/timeline-a-history-of-violence-against-sikhs-in-the-wake-of-911.
In the article “Modern-Day Witch Hunts”, Jamie Dailey focuses the attention on problems that Muslim Americans commonly face on a day-to-day basis. He first paints a picture by comparing the violent acts performed on Muslims to the Salem Witch trial in 1692. The Salem Witch trials resulted in 19 deaths of innocent individuals, because they were accused of witchcraft. Dailey goes on to explain in America, the type of persecution Muslims endure has many forms. A more recent controversy towards this religion involves the building of the Ground Zero Mosque in central New York. The name of this building is very misleading, especially to the eyes of an American. Even though this structure is actually built a few blocks away from where the former World Trade Center stood, problems have still risen from the public. Americans often mistake Muslims as the group of people who had performed acts of terrorism on American soil, when it was actually an Islamic group known as Al Qaeda. Mosques all across the United States started being vandalized by people protesting against their religion. This article shows how irrational fear can corrupt the thoughts of people.
In a society, the discrimination is wrong, we should try to end it now; besides, discriminations make people being have a distance when they stand near each other. We need develop this society lives by unity; furthermore, I believe only unity is a super power to improve our life without discrimination of races, sex, religions, because “united we stand, divided we fall.” Everybody has an equal right in life; we should refuse discrimination in society; if we know changes, then everything will become a miracle bring the happiness to everybody.
...changed after the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Sikh truck drivers have reported people violently cutting them off and calling them "ragheads." Congregants at Gurdwara Sahib in Fresno had racist graffiti spray painted on their temple. However, "With the passage of time, people have become informed about Sikhs, and the situation has much improved," says Amrik Singh Virk, temple secretary at the Sikh Center of the Pacific Coast in Selma. (Orozco) Unfortunately this change took three years in the Fresno community for the public to finally realize not all Sikhs are terrorists. Although the racial tension has eased with the passage of time,"It has gotten a little better, but, as a minority group, we're still smarting," says Poonia, a Fresno doctor. "There still is ignorance, misunderstanding and prejudice. Color lines have eroded, but they have not been eliminated."
On September 11, 2001, since the terrorist attacks, many American Muslims have been stereotyped negatively in the United States. Salma, a Muslim woman, says that the way Muslims have been recognized in the media has played a big role in the antagonisms directed to her. “I don’t know how many time I heard my classmates accuse me of being al-Qaeda or a terrorist” (Mayton 2013). Salma, along with other Muslims, even after a decade, are still struggling with trying to find their “American” and “Islamic” identities, while facing verbal attacks for their ethnicity. Too often, the general Muslin population gets lumped in with the immoral acts of a few because of the lack of knowledge about their culture.
The way Muslims have been treated after the 9/11 incident is very different than before. Before 9/11 there was certainly some discrimination towards Muslim Americans, but after the attacks happened, between the years 2000 and 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported a 1,700 percent increase of hate crimes against Muslim Americans (Khan & Ecklund, 2012). “While trying to adapt to the outcome of 9/11, Muslim Americans dealt with an increase in negative stereotypes spoken by the common culture, and Muslim immigrants faced more negative attitudes than any other immigrant group” (Khan & Ecklund, 2012). Since the 9/11 attacks, people who dress with a substantial resemblance to Muslims worry about the upcoming hatred and unfriendliness from people of other ethnicities (Khan & Ecklund, 2012). While listening to the media, one can hear reports of negative stereotypes towards people who resemble the Muslim religion, which may be assumed that these people are violent. Negative attitudes that Muslim Americans experience may have detrimental effects on their success in America and their success of achieving the American Dream.
Racial profiling has existed since biblical times, and is still present in today’s society. Recently in history we had the tragic terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. It did not take long for the fear of anyone from the Middle East to ripple through America. Wearing a turban in public would get people falsely accused of being violent terrorists. Over and over again, people foolishly stereotype and judge individuals based on their race or appearance.
1.) Intro: I decided to focus my Religious Ethnography on a friend whom I recently have become close with. Adhita Sahai is my friend’s name, which she later told me her first name meant “scholar.” I choose to observe and interview Adhita, after she invited me to her home after hearing about my assignment. I was very humbled that she was open to this, because not only was it a great opportunity for this paper, but it also helped me get to know Adhita better. I took a rather general approach to the religious questions that I proposed to the Sahai family because I didn’t want to push to deep, I could tell Hinduism is extremely important to this family. Because this family does not attend a religious site where they worship, I instead listened to how they do this at home as a family instead.
...ut of the forty-seven percent who practice their religion, twenty three percent reported being bullied because of their religion or faith. The most common forms of bullying are verbal, psychological or emotional and physical. Cyber-bullying was experienced in six percent of cases and nine percent have been bullied because of the religious symbols they wear or present. The facts are simple and the truth is most of these young people turn to self-harm, alcohol or drugs which is not a good life for any of them.
...lim violence mentioned in class lectures include a taxi cab driver in NYC who identified himself as a Muslim and was shot dead by the passenger, four pieces of construction equipment was destroyed at a future mosque site in Tennessee also in Tennessee, a pipe bomb went off in a mosque in Jacksonville killing somewhere around 60 people. This is only a few example of the many hate crimes committed against Muslims in the United States. Muslims not only face hate crimes in the U.S., but all over the world today which is particularly disturbing in the U.S. which has a Constitution that states all citizens are free to practice their own religion, but clearly as of late, this is not true for Muslim Americans.
Islamophobia did not suddenly start after the horrific 9/11 event. Like anti-Semitism , it has long and deep historical roots; however, its contemporary resurgence has been triggered by the 9/11 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As a result of several people’s inane folly, Islamophobia distorts the photograph of the entire Muslim community wherever they live; Muslims today are guilty until proven innocent.
Islam often requires much of its followers, and Sawm is an aspect of the Islamic month of Ramadan that is rather intense. Ramadan is an entire month, and is dedicated to cleansing, purification, self-sacrifice, and reflection on one’s connection and relationship with Allah. Since the Islamic calendar is based upon the moon, the first New Moon marks the beginning of Ramadan.
Out of the many different South Asian religions there are in today’s living. Each has a dharmic world view that differentiates them and compares them to each other. Each of the religions forms their own unique beliefs and practices based on the history that revolves around them. However out of the different concepts that form the dharmic world view of a religion, like authority, cosmology, family, life cycle and morality. Both authority and morality influence in each of the different South Asian religions similarly. Helping in the understanding and learning about the different beliefs and practices, each religion has. Also, these two dharmic world view concepts that are authority and morality bring in the recognition of what are the values and main points of what the religion is to be. In examining the dharmic world view concepts of authority and morality in the different south Asian religions that are Tribal, Buddhism, Sikhism,
Sikhism suits the needs of modern life since it is open to everyone who is willing to embrace its practices and doctrines. Sikhism, one of the most scientific and modern religions in the world, is the fifth largest religion. One distinctive characteristic of the Sikh religious practice in comparison to other faiths is the vibrant Sikh identity, which is culturally, spiritually, and visually, able to be noticeable within the crowd. Sikhism has become principally and identifiably a way of appearance, which is the decisive threshold between being a “Sikh” or not, between being someone and being anyone. A Sikh’s identity is known as the “Khalsa”, which means the “community of the pure” (Takhar, 2005). The Khalsa is an example of a transnational religious community, which its sole purpose was to institute a military charge of “saint soldiers.” The Khalsa refers to the baptized Sikhs, who have taken “amrit paul” (Nesbitt, 2002). The Khalsa was responsible for both protection and administration of the community. According to Sikhism, a Sikh should be a scholar, saint, and soldier for God, who must live by an example as the Guru Granth Sahib outlines. Sikhs have their own real identity, which is vividly growing substantially since it possesses its separate religion, institutions, martial traditions, history, and territory. The Khalsa Sikhs could be recognized by the given five articles of Sikhism, the Five Ks (McLeod, 2008). However, how is it possible that a turbaned and bearded portrait of a Sikh comes to embody a religion whose antipathy to the worship of a sacred idol image is the character of its difference from Hinduism? This research paper, argues that the theoretical accounts of the role of the outer appearance relative to the rel...
Islam is the religion of peace. It is not a new religion revealed by the creator Allah Subhana Wa Tala through all His Prophet in every era and to every people Islam is not only a religion it is also a manual of life. Followers of Islam have to submit their wills to God and have to admit that God is one and He is Allah who runs the entire universe. The key of Islam is