Thursday, November 10, 2011

Prdjudice: finding scapegoats through Middle Eastern backgrounds

A scapegoat is the blaming of country or national issues on a certain set of people due to race, religion, age and gender. Scapegoats have been prominent through history, particularly in genocides such as the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the Cambodian genocide.

Today in the United States, a large immigration is taking place. This immigration is coming from Middle Eastern countries, fed up with how their countries are run and looking for a fresh start. These countries are filled with evil dictators, taking advantage of their people for their own advancement in life. Yet in our country, we don’t view these people as innocent people. Instead, we view them as part of the terrorist group known as the Taliban. We make them out as the villains for one of the worst catastrophes because of their racial and religious background. In fact, we made a huge deal out of a mosque being built near the site of 9/11. Yes, a place of worship was viewed as a source of evil. An owner of a car dealership in Alabama just won a 7.5 million dollar suit because an employee in a near by car dealership in Florida told a couple that he was funding the Taliban by sending money back to his family still Iran. He has lived in the United States since 1980, when he left because of the Islamic revolution. Why is it that in the “land of the free” we find scapegoats for every problem we encounter?

This is not the first time in our history we have found scapegoats. During World War II it was the Japanese Americans, before that it was the Irish settlers, right now it is the big business owners and people of Middle Eastern descent. I will be the first to admit I get very nervous when I fly and see a person who is wearing a veil. This anxiety is built through our media and what we watch. They present the Middle East as corrupt, blood thirsty, and killers. It most likely wont be like this forever, in fact Chinese Americans will most likely be the next scapegoats of our country, but I fail to understand why this happens in such rage. These people came here to begin again, and we can’t seem to allow this to happen. Most of our forefathers came to this country to start again, isn’t it time we allow these people the same opportunity?

Below is a video of how Muslim scapegoating has grown in the United States:



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