Lorrie+L’s+Final+AmEx+2013+Speech

=Title of Speech= Islamophobia in Post-9/11 American Culture =Text of Speech= Since our country’s birth, we’ve been patting ourselves on the back for our achievements, and while I do believe that to an extent that can be a good thing, I also believe it has come to be too much. As a country, we glance back at history and pride ourselves on how well we’ve brought freedom and equality, but this gives a false sense of security in thinking we’ve handled all of the important civil liberties issues. Across party lines we’ve become spoiled, finding reasons to complain about our government’s every move, as if there are no other vastly important issues beyond gay marriage or attacks on the Christian’s religious freedom.

While it’s totally valid to say that sometimes mainstream media does seem to be more about scoring points against Christians than cleanly reporting and that can be extremely frustrating, this is all an unfortunate bias, //not// an attack on religious freedom.

Last summer, Conservative Congressman Mike Kelley spoke of President Obama’s requirement that private insurers cover birth control as such an attack. He said, and I quote: //“I know in your mind you can think of times when America was attacked. One is December 7th, that's Pearl Harbor day. The other is September 11th, and that's the day of the terrorist attack. I want you to remember August the 1st, 2012, the attack on our religious freedom. That is a day that will live in infamy, along with those other dates." //  I don’t need to explain that there are a million things wrong this that statement, but it’s just another example of the idea that Christians are under the strongest fire in this country, as is lamented whenever a new petition is made to take the word “God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance and complained every winter when classroom parties are called “holiday parties” rather than “Christmas parties”. I’m a Christian, and I know this belief that my religion is the most persecuted to be far from the truth. Again, the media biases can be annoying, but honestly I’m embarrassed by my contemporaries for all of this whining, almost as embarrassed as I am overall by the Islamophobia that has pervaded our culture since September 11th, 2001.  In the first six years after 9/11, the Department [of Justice] investigated more than 800 incidents involving violence, threats, vandalism, and arson against persons //perceived// to be Muslim or of Arab, Middle Eastern, or South Asian origin. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) reported a 1,600% increase in anti-Muslim hate crime incidents in 2001. Since 9/11, the Sikh Coalition has received thousands of reports from the Sikh community about hate crimes, workplace discrimination, school bullying, and racial and religious profiling.

Unsurprisingly, while the FBI and certain government agencies and embassies have kept track of these statistics and were persecuting the perpetrators of such crimes, simultaneously new laws and immigration policies were developed that target people from Arab and Muslim countries. One such policy involved a “special” registration program for certain immigrants from specified countries.

As we see our law enforcement profiling, it’s not difficult to also see how the people of this country have felt justification for their actions, regardless of how forward thinking and progressive we pride ourselves for being.

A few weeks ago I saw the movie The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a film about a Pakistani man called Changez and his love affair with an American woman, and his eventual abandonment of America. Changez came to the States for college and successfully made his way up the ladder in corporate America. He had truly achieved what he imagined as the American dream until one evening on an overseas business trip, his girlfriend called him from New York where just down the street, the towers were falling. Days later, when Changez and his white colleagues returned to the States, he was immediately pulled aside in JFK and interrogated, all for the color of his skin. The rest of the film follows the cultural backlash of 9/11 the young man must face, ranging from tire-slashings to more police detentions and interrogations just outside his own Wall Street office.

These incidents were hardly uncommon following 9/11, and anyone with brown skin or dark beards or turbans was targeted. It wasn’t just 2001, either. A few months ago I was flying back from San Francisco and 3 bearded men in business suits sat down a couple rows in front of me. The only thing that differentiated them from the rest of the people on the flight were their turbans and beards that were cleanly tucked into the turbans, but of course these minor details led the middle-aged woman directly behind me to loudly whisper to her friend, “Oh dear, I should probably call John to tell him I love him before it’s too late and we’re all dead.”

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Unsettled and frustrated, this comment and the equally obnoxious ones that followed stayed with me for the entirety of the flight and drive home, and remained with me since as yet another example of the disgusting profiling that has become part of the post 9/11 culture.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">The irony of this instance was that these men were clearly Sikhs, not Arab Muslims, which BY THE WAY, as at least many of you wonderful people realize, does not equal terrorist. And in case anyone was wondering, on the FBI’s website you’ll find that only 6% -yes, point zero six percent- of domestic terrorist attacks since 1980 have been committed by Al Qaeda.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the America I want to grow old in, I want there to be a precedent set to understand the people around you, “know your neighbor”, if you will. Understand, not profile, not oppress, not make ignorant, bigoted comments to your neighbor on a 45 minute flight. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">I want people to not only know that extremists shouldn’t reflect so harshly on the faith they polluted and violated, but more importantly, that the high majority of Muslims, Christians, and Jews are mortified to be mentioned in the same breath as Al-Qaeda, the Westboro Baptist Church, or any Zionist terrorism.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #500050; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">I want people to be more focused on embracing and celebrating diversity than condemning entire groups based off of their headwear.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">I want to be able to look at the next generation and be truly proud of our and their advancements overall toward the human race. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #500050; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">I want people to understand that real tolerance is not agreeing by any means, but rather escaping irrational fears to see the good in people.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the America I want to grow old in, I want my children to feel safe from the evils this world can hold, but what’s more, is I want them to instead of fearing what they don’t understand, feel passionate about learning all they can to realize that //real// tolerance and the ability to see the humanity in everyone is what they need.

=Cite Your Sources=

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">@http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-religion-belief/911s-legacy-religious-discrimination <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">@http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/mike-kelly-birth-control-mandate_n_1729242.html <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">@http://www.huffingtonpost.com/colleen-mckown/turbans-do-not-equal-terrorism-sikhs-promoting-awareness-in-a-post-911-america_b_3176101.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008 <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">@http://www.justice.gov/crt/publications/post911/post911summit_report_2012-04.pdf <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">@http://www.kaurista.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Fact-Sheet-on-Hate-Against-Sikhs-in-America-Post-9-11.pdf <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">@http://www.people-press.org/2013/05/07/after-boston-little-change-in-views-of-islam-and-violence/