Stereotypes

Stereotypes can reduce groups of people to oversimplified categories. We all have them. Whether it is about all Jews being money grubbing people, gun owners being survival nuts or blacks being lazy welfare mooches. Muslims today get stereotyped as terrorists, women haters, anti western people. On Sept. 11 2001 the United States was attacked by terrorists of the Muslim faith, this cemented in many people’s minds that all Muslims were terrorists or supported the acts. On the news you hear stories about Muslim women being stoned to death for bringing shame on their families

Today most people get their stereotypes from the news or TV shows. These stereotypes come from two main reasons. First, most news stories are short and don’t give time to tell the full story. So while the terrorist may have been a Muslim, they don’t report that other Muslims condemn the attack and that the terrorist acted on their own. The other reason is that the reporters might believe the stereotype they are reporting and don’t feel the need to see if the stereotypes they are reporting are right. On TV shows you have lazy writers that use the stereotypes in the show because taking the time to find a different bad guy would take too long. You see this with many stereotypes in TV or movies, whether it is Muslim, gun owners or rich people.

In the news nowadays you see stories about young girls in Pakistan having acid thrown in their face for going to school, a young girl being forced to marry the man who raped her and rape victims being sentenced to death for have sex outside of marriage. These news reports help many believe the stereotype of Muslims hating women. To support the stereotype that all Muslims are terrorist you have news stories like the Corvallis Muslim that tried to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, the would be bomber caught at the Washington border with explosives and the shoe bomber on the flight from Europe. If the above stories were all you ever heard...