Post 9/11 and how it affects everyday life for Arab Americans

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    After the disaster that befell New York on September 11, 2001, the view on Muslims and Arab Americans significantly hit an all time low. Society had now deemed them all as "terrorist" simply because of their Arab background. You could be from Jordan, Iran, Afghan, or simply be from a North African region that is part of Islamic religion and has Arabic influence are also singled out and facing harsh discrimination by others. 

    As I mentioned in class discussion about the true meaning of الله اكبر - which translates to God is the greatest, however that term has been associated as negative phrase that those who are ignorant to find out the meaning or don't know will use it to describe "wishing death upon you" or "I'm going to kill you". Many Arabs and Arab Americans and those who do or don't have any Islamic ties or are/aren't Muslims have been subjected to hate crimes that followed them in privacy of their home and places of worship. 

    Discrimination is still happening towards Arab Americans even decades after 9/11, if an Arab American who is Muslim gets on a flight they experience FWA (flying while Arab) which is racial profiling. Most of the airlines kick the passengers of planes because they spoke in Arabic, were in a group, or their lack of English was misunderstood by other passengers who felt "unsafe". It's also happening in the education system, employment, and in places that have public accommodations. 

    In Mustafa Bayoumi's " How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America, He writes about the ethnic profiling that Rasha and her family faced as well as other Arabs were were unlawfully arrested under the false accusation of being linked as terrorists following 9/11 (Bayoumi, pg. 21-22). 

    Another issue that was seen was social isolation within Rasha's family after their release from the MDC. They were too traumatized to even talk about and Rasha explains that  "they were close but distant". In the book it says, "But everywhere around her was the constant spit of this 9/11 talk." (Bayoumi, pg. 36). Rasha begins to notice the stigma spreading around in New York about how Arab Americans were viewed as. 


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