Strickland 1

David Strickland

Prof. Christian

Comm. 1350

20 February, 2017

Co-Culture Analysis

Muslims and those associated with Islam and the Middle East have been

discriminated against all around the world for the past hundreds of years and in

particular the US. This co-culture holds many stereotypes and generalizations to its

name and has a deep rooted history of these types of discriminative acts and

judgments against their culture. By understanding the history of why these certain

stereotypical, racist, and culturally incompetent ideologies exist towards Muslims,

we can then understand why Muslims are viewed the way in which they are today.

This paper looks to; explore current stereotypes in the US towards Muslims and

Middle Easterners, explain the history of this co-culture in regards to how they have

been viewed by the rest of the US from past years until recently, explain my own

feelings and views about this co-culture by examining and taking a closer look

about why these views might exist and where they came from, and lastly how

communication efforts could be improved with myself and with this culture far

different than my own. For the purpose of this paper, a stereotype can be defined

from a quote from the text as humans simplify the processing and organizing

information from the environment by identifying certain characteristics as belonging

to certain categories of persons and events. The characteristics of particular events,

persons, or objects, once experienced, are often assumed to be typical of similar

events, persons, or objects. Though these assumptions are sometimes accurate,

often they are not. (Lustig 136).

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Within society today in the US, Muslims are generally viewed as weird or even

threatening despite the fact that they may not be. There are many stereotypes that

exist, but looking further than stereotypes against Muslims, there is a deep layer of

hatred and many racist views against them. This is due to the radical Islamic

Terrorist organizations that we are at war with currently. Many Americans also

discriminate towards Muslims assuming they are suspects of terrorism and that

Muslims dont like this country. This can be seen without looking too hard just from

an average people in the US, especially more among the dominant cultures. Other

Americans become uncomfortable when seeing how some Muslims dress different

and think it is wrong. Some Americans even blame all Muslims for our war on

Terrorism. Much of these stereotypes are the result of ethnocentric ideologies.

These differences in central beliefs, cause many Americans to feel uncomfortable

because their own values and valences within their own values differ from that of

Muslims, and they consider Muslims values to be wrong. Aside from associations

that people falsely accuse Muslims of in relation to war and our political issues,

there is just a vast amount of stereotypes about Muslims in general. For example,

Dalia Mogahed who is featured for a Ted Talk video What its like to be Muslim in

America talks about Muslim stereotypes and racism. She goes onto explaining how

some people see her with her head covering and long dress, and right away assume

that Islam oppresses women and that she has no choice in how she dresses. She

rebuttals this, stating that for herself, she actually individually chose to dress that

way, and chose to become a devout Muslim and how she chooses what she does

with her life and how that stereotype is in far incorrect. This is just one of many she

explains. But she mainly touches on Islamophobia and reasons for it existing. Media
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is a key factor to the desensitization of Americans feeling more racists and bigoted

towards Muslims when told how they are a violent people and terrorist. But once

again this stereotype is intensified due to the extremists within Islam claiming to be

the true Muslims and making it seem as if they represent who Muslims are. This is

the major contributing factor to all of the stereotypes about this co-culture. Also the

fact that a larger percentage of Americans do not know a Muslim, than those who

do, as discussed in the same video, is a reason for these many stereotypes to be

portrayed as true because these Americans do not know anyone Muslim to see that

these outrageous stereotypes are incorrect.

Now that the current stereotypes about Muslims have been discussed and

reasons for why Americans keep hold them to be true, this paper will examine the

history and roots of where all of these racists stereotypes and generalizations came

from. As Eefa Shehzad mentions in her speech Middle Eastern and Muslim

Stereotypes in Media featured in a Ted Talks presentation, she points out that

research shows how media has largely been the biggest influence in infatuating

these largely false stereotypes about Muslims. All the way from Aladdin portraying

Muslims as barbaric and violent, to the most recent war video games today, movies,

shows, etc., that portray these things negative things about Muslims. This is

supported by research by a professor from Southern Illinois University who

examined 1000 films from 1896 to 2007 containing Middle Eastern References. Over

900 of these films contained negative views and connotations towards Middle

Easterners. This explains some of the more recent history of why people view

Muslims so negatively. Such as, they are these barbaric and savage people, who

dress weird, and have abnormal social practices. She also quotes a study done from

a gallop poll, with results showing that at least 40% of Americans claimed to have
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somewhat racist thoughts about Muslims. She claims that media is a strong

correlation to these high numbers of Americans who feel this way. She also

establishes her own credibility by stating that she is Muslim and an international

student. From this she explains, she herself has seen people all over America as well

as people from all over the world believe these types of stereotypes about Muslims.

It would make sense to why so many Americans believe these stereotypes about

Muslims in todays society, because clearly these ideas have been a constant

portrayed and advertised belief about Muslims, to Americans for over a century.

Also, speaking in general terms of the history of where these stereotypes stem

from: part of it is just because of the sole fact of being in a war with Muslim

extremists and America having been involved with the Middle East for decades now

has rooted people to believe that Muslims are trouble. These conflicts/wars have

led to people to think that we are always against them in regards to how we are

overseas fighting them, so these stereotypes about people who dress weird and are

violent must be true. When in reality they are just misunderstood norms and social

practices.

In my own personal experiences, I do not whatsoever view Muslims in this

negative connotation that some Americans do, such as this paper has explained. I

understand that a few groups who are radical do not actually depict who an entire

culture is or depict what their religion truly represents. Dalia Mogahed earlier

discussed, made the comparison to how the Ku Klux Klan does not represent

Christianity. And she explains that these are just groups of people with hatred who

use these holy books as an excuse and a median to get across their ideologies and

beliefs to attempt to oppress and discriminate others. And I completely agree with

that. I have many Muslim friends, and it would be beyond insulting and nave to
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think that because of the terrorist that I may have just witnessed been responsible

for having killed someone while watching the news, that maybe my friend is linked

to terrorism just because they are both Muslim. But through personal experience I

have seen many friends of mine, some associated with dominant cultures as well as

minorities co-cultures, who had become uneasy around Muslims dressing different

and ended up saying somewhat discriminative comments about their clothing. Or

they even went on to assume that a particular woman didnt want to wear what she

was wearing, or that they dont speak English, or werent smart, etc. And Ive

always corrected colleagues or friends because those stereotypes are not true. And

I always try to put my friends in the other persons shoes and attempt to make them

realize that their religion and culture is all relative to where they are from and the

environment they grew up in possibly. And point out also, that what they are

wearing is not stupid but it is what they believe they should do and they might

fully embrace that and enjoy it, so we should not judge for that.

These stereotypes are just the result of differences in cultural patterns as

discussed in the text. While discussing cultural patterns Lustig states that Yet if

cultural patterns predispose people to a particular definition of what is real, good,

and right, reactions to others as unreal, bad, or wrong may create psychological

distance between interactions.(96). This distance between interactions mentioned

is the reason for why so many Americans judge, because Muslims are different than

them. Then they go on to assume things, and in the end create racists and false

ideologies about them. Although I do not believe these stereotypes about Muslims I

cant lie to say that I have never somewhat judged certain Muslims. In my culture, I

do not have the same central beliefs and or norms as the co-culture of Muslims do.

And at times I become confused and question why they would do certain things. Or
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think that they are weird at first for doing those things. For example why certain

women have only an eye opening to see from their full body clothing, or why they

pray 5 times a day towards Mecca, etc. Then I realize that they are not weird for

their beliefs, and any stereotypes I hear from others or the media are not true,

because they are people too, who are just going about their path in life and living

day to day peacefully as well. And at that, they might think my culture is weird or

different. So I always try to put myself on both sides of the story. To overcome any

gaps within communicating to Muslims for Americans or even myself, it is important

to realize that what you see and hear on the news or in media about radical Muslims

does not mean every Muslim you know is a terrorist. Also, that stereotypes only

classify certain people, and that Muslims are humans as well, and are the same as

all of us, just with different cultural practices. And lastly, see them as you would a

family member or a classmate, or a friendly neighbor because that is indeed who

they are. Do not ostracize them, only fueling the fire to these racist stereotypes to

continue on about a co-culture that is the same as any other person in America who

just wants to live a peaceful and happy life.

In conclusion America holds many judgmental and negative stereotypes

about Muslims in America and around the world. Part of this is a result of media

historically portraying Muslims this way up until present day. Another contributing

factor of this problem is pure naivety of many Americans actually not knowing

Muslims and assuming that just because we are at war with certain groups of

people who happen to be Muslim, that all Muslims must be dangerous. And in my

opinion, I believe these stereotypes are outrageous, horrific, and saddening. But by

trying to understand one another and see each other as people and one in the
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same, we can better bridge the gap of communication among one other and

communicate and live cohesively in peace.

Work Cited

- Mogahed, Dalia. "What It's like to Be Muslim in America." Dalia Mogahed: What It's

like to Be Muslim in America | TED Talk | TED.com. TED, Feb. 2016. Web. 20 Feb.

2017.

- TEDxYouth. "Middle Eastern and Muslim Stereotypes in Media : Eefa Shehzad at

TEDxYouth@ISBangkok." YouTube. YouTube, 12 Mar. 2014. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.

- Lustig, Myron W. and Koester, Jolene. Intercultural Competence Interpersonal

Communication Across Cultures. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2013.

Print.