It has been 14 years since the 9/11 attacks, yet many people in the United States still associate the word “Muslim” with the word “terrorist,” and thus blame the Islamic community as a whole. This stigma is unfortunately creating a harsh environment at school for Muslim teenagers and even Muslim preteens across the country.
A couple years ago, a study was conducted in California by CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR-CA surveyed a total of 471 Muslim students across 21 counties in California between the ages of 11 and 18. Over a tenth of these students reported being physically bullied, over half the students surveyed reported being verbally abused, and over a fifth of the students reported being cyberbullied. There were even a number of students who felt that they weren’t respected by their teachers because of their religion.
Too many Muslim girls across America feel as though they can’t wear hijabs to school, and often are subject to being called “terrorists” and verbally abused in many other ways. There are many instances in which girls who would normally wear hijabs will not exercise their religious rights to avoid being bullied at school.
In 2010, a Bollywood movie was released called My Name is Khan. The movie was about a Muslim man, Rizwan Khan, who suffered from Aspberger’s syndrome. In the film, Rizwan settled in San Francisco, married a Hindu single mother, and moved in with her and her son. They both took his last name Khan, a common Muslim surname. The 9/11 attacks occurred shortly after the couple married, and everyone the characters knew – assuming that all three were Muslims – turned against them. Their son, Sameer, was fatally beaten. Rizwan’s wife, Mandira, blamed Rizwan with bringing prejudice against the family with his last name and wanted him out of her life. She was so angry over the loss of her son she told him the only way she would stay with him was if he told the President of the United States that his “name is Khan, and he is not a terrorist.” The rest of the movie follows Rizwan’s journey to reach the President, documenting the racism and hatred he faced along the way.
My Name is Khan brilliantly depicted the unfairness that many innocent Muslim families faced after the 9/11 attacks. The Islamic community cannot be held responsible as a whole for something only a few individuals did. The education of Muslim teenagers in the United States should not be hindered by racial profiling at school. I myself am not a Muslim, nor is anyone else in my family, yet it doesn’t take a Muslim to know that when a significant number of Muslim teenagers across the United States don’t feel safe in their own schools, there is an issue.
It is about time we attack this ignorance and spread awareness.
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