by Tracy A. Moore

Created on: September 23, 2007

The negative portrayal of Muslims in the media has created a lot of fear and distrust of Muslims. This is an unfortunate situation to say the least. Personally I used to feel the same fear as a lot of other people in our society due to the fact that I come from a very small town where the only exposure to anything Islamic were the awful things that are on the news everyday. Luckily, I moved away from that small town and met some real life Muslims.

In the last three years I have met many Muslims from all parts of the world. As a whole, the people that I have met have been truly nice people with the same concerns and goals as most Americans. Of course there have been a few that I did not particularly care for. Was it because there was something sinister about them? No, there were just some people that I didn't feel like I had anything in common with. Nothing different than happens with anyone we might meet in our lives.

It would help if there was a more open rapport between the citizens of America and the average American Muslim population. The media has created an invisible fence between us as groups. The average American sees all Muslims as the violent people portrayed in the news. The average Muslim also watches the news and sees Americans as anti-Muslim, which breeds distrust in them towards us as well. It is a vicious cycle. There is a lot of buzz about why Muslim people do not speak out about the vile acts of a few.

I cannot speak for them, but I can try to put myself in their shoes. If I were to turn on my television every day and see my group as terribly portrayed on a daily basis, I may feel afraid to try to speak out, or I may simply feel as though no one would believe me anyway and just not bother to try. It is the same as any other prejudice, the only way that we are going to move past it is if both sides start getting to know one another as individual people.

It is not going to be easy as there is still a lot of prejudice in the world against many different types of people. Most of this comes from not knowing anything about them. Maybe someday, people as a whole will realize that there is value in every human being that is not determined by what religion that person is. For the last two and a half years, I have been married to a wonderful Muslim man. His family and friends have all been very warm and kind to me. The reason for this is that we relate to one another as people and not according to religious beliefs.

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