Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump shockingly mentioned in a series of conversations last month that he would “absolutely” require “Muslims in the United States to register in a database" (Gabriel), also having earlier demanded the "surveillance of certain mosques" (Haberman). Ever since he started running for president, Donald Trump has been criticizing minorities and immigrants in a racist and stereotypical manner. But the most shocking part is that his poll numbers, increased sharply after he took his stance against the Muslims (Healy and Barbaro), according to the New York Times, making it clear that he is not the only American who thinks of Muslims as a dangerous threat.
America is home to more than a million peace-loving, …show more content…
It is an undeniable instinct that leads to easy decision-making. Pointing a finger at something with complete confidence and clarity caters to our mechanistic thinking, where something is either certainly "this" or certainly "that". The media takes unethical advantage of this human tendency. Ever since the 9/11 bombings, the media has made Muslims the scapegoat for acts of terror. Whenever there is an act of terror, people can indubitably point their fingers at Muslims and have that clarity and certainty that their minds desire. This clarity essentially breaks down into "All terrorists are Muslims, which means everyone else is harmless”. With this standard, people don't have to go through the difficulty of seeing their own kind as terrorists since it's always the …show more content…
When people scapegoat a certain group, they mentally remove the possibility of themselves or their kind being the culprits. A striking example of the media's purposeful intent to scapegoat Muslims is the New York Post changing their cover headline about the San Bernardino massacre from "Murder Mission" to "Muslim Killers" to emphasize the presence of a Muslim (Yakas). The media never puts out headlines like “White Killer” even though “white right-wing terrorists have killed almost twice as many Americans in homegrown attacks than radical Islamists have” according to a study conducted by New America Foundation (Plucinska). The media is aware that they have a deluded audience who would prefer to believe that the source of terrorism in their country are Muslims -- who they consider as outsiders -- and not their own
America is home to more than a million peace-loving, …show more content…
It is an undeniable instinct that leads to easy decision-making. Pointing a finger at something with complete confidence and clarity caters to our mechanistic thinking, where something is either certainly "this" or certainly "that". The media takes unethical advantage of this human tendency. Ever since the 9/11 bombings, the media has made Muslims the scapegoat for acts of terror. Whenever there is an act of terror, people can indubitably point their fingers at Muslims and have that clarity and certainty that their minds desire. This clarity essentially breaks down into "All terrorists are Muslims, which means everyone else is harmless”. With this standard, people don't have to go through the difficulty of seeing their own kind as terrorists since it's always the …show more content…
When people scapegoat a certain group, they mentally remove the possibility of themselves or their kind being the culprits. A striking example of the media's purposeful intent to scapegoat Muslims is the New York Post changing their cover headline about the San Bernardino massacre from "Murder Mission" to "Muslim Killers" to emphasize the presence of a Muslim (Yakas). The media never puts out headlines like “White Killer” even though “white right-wing terrorists have killed almost twice as many Americans in homegrown attacks than radical Islamists have” according to a study conducted by New America Foundation (Plucinska). The media is aware that they have a deluded audience who would prefer to believe that the source of terrorism in their country are Muslims -- who they consider as outsiders -- and not their own