Denouncing Terrorism: How Mainstream Media has Contributed to the Dehumanization of Muslims in America Romo Follow Aug 1, 2015 · 4 min read

Earlier this week, I had my annual dentist appointment and for once I actually had something to talk to him about. I found a little time in between my dentist asking me if I had been flossing (I hadn’t) and him cleaning my teeth, to ask if he had found any time to publicly denounce the killing of Cecil the lion.

Cecil the Lion

Cecil the lion was hunted and killed by a Minnesotan dentist in early July and this news has just recently been the cause of public outrage. My dentist looked at me quizzically for a second before he realized that it was a joke and decided to give me a few courtesy laughs. It was obviously outrageous for me to ask my dentist to denounce the behaviors of another person, whom he had never met, who did something heinous on the other side of the planet, somewhere my dentist had never been, just because they were both dentists. However, this is the exact type of thing that Muslims across the globe are asked to partake in each time an extremist group uses their religion incorrectly as a vehicle for violence. Why is this not seen as an absurd exercise the same way in which most of us would see someone asking every dentist to denounce the murder of Cecil the lion?

The otherization and dehumanization of Muslims has grown consistently in the United States over the last several years. A recent poll by the Washington Post shows that one in four Americans harbored prejudice against Muslims, and nearly 50% of all Americans harbor a negative view of Islam, which is a 7% increase since the aftermath of 9/11. So why has anti-Muslim sentiment grown in the U.S.?

In my opinion, a major reason has been a mainstream acceptance of anti-Muslim sentiment by the major news outlets in the United States. Fox news can be seen as the main culprit, but other outlets such as CNN have also partaken in allowing Islamophobia to become accepted in the mainstream. Islamophobic commentators such as Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have regularly been giving legitimacy by being allowed to appear and comment on Islamic issues. Former Fox News commentator Bob Beckel even admitted to being an Islamophobe on live television. By allowing the opinions of these anti-islamic pundits to gain validity, news outlets have contributed to the growing anti-Muslim sentiment in America.

Muslims have been painted as different by the mainstream media and this idea has been perpetuated to the citizens of the United States. So what does this have to do with Muslims being asked to denounce anything done terribly in the name of Islam? As humans, it is our natural instinct to be against acts of violence, or at least we are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to most people. Sure, there are extremists in every situation, but to act as if they are the majority is nonsense.

However, Muslims have not been given the benefit of the doubt, and that’s because the general population does not view them as compassionate, sympathetic, and kind. Muslims have been dehumanized to be viewed as a blood-thirsty, violent monolith and as such, their default belief must be to condone violence. So, if a Muslim doesn’t immediately publicly denounce a heinous crime, the default belief is that they must condone the act. This is the only group of people that this situation is true for. This shows how the Muslim citizen is viewed in the United States, not as kind, compassionate individuals, as almost all Muslim-Americans are, but as violent and savage individuals.

The next time you see a news anchor ask a Muslim guest to denounce an act of terrorism, think about the implications of this question. It assumes that the Muslim is not already against violence, and it assumes that the default position for a Muslim is to be pro-violence, unless they otherwise explicitly state that they are not. This paints Muslims as inherently violently when this is not the case.

We didn’t go around asking every single dentist to denounce the killing of Cecil the lion, because we understand that even though dentists cause immense pain to many people, they are generally good people. Muslims, as a majority, are generally good, caring, and law-abiding citizens in the United States, but they are shown in a different light by the news media. Between 1980 and 2005, 94% of the terrorist attacks in the United States were caused by non-Muslims. In 2013, you were more likely to be killed by a toddler in the U.S. (5 people) than by a Muslim terrorist (3 people). However, if one were to judge by media coverage, he or she may believe that Muslim terrorists were much more prominent in the United States.

The U.S. media has attempted to make Muslims the “other” as Muslims are attempting to assimilate into American society and they then have the audacity to turn around and ask why some Muslims have difficulty completely integrating into American society. As a Muslim-American, I am tired of being asked to denounce the terrorist activities of those that I never have and never will meet, as they attempt to highjack my religion to promote their barbaric goals. I hope that Muslim-Americans can be viewed in a position that is akin to their actual behavior as thoughtful, charitable, and kind individuals and not in the same light as those that use Islam incorrectly as a vehicle for terrorism.

Contributors: I would like to credit Hadi Y. for helping me to edit this article.