1101-391 Language and Identity.

There are many words out in the world that are offensive. I hear a lot of these words used when people are angry at someone. Also, people use these words when they dislike the person. Many words like the n-word, b-word,and so on. They will be times where I will drop a f-bomb at someone or even call someone a b-word because they pissed me off but I don’t really use these words normally. There’s a certain word that personally offends me and others who are related to my culture which is a terrorist.I had friends in high school who said this word to me because they said “I look like one”.I responded back by cursing them out of anger. This word is being used incorrectly and now being used base on someone’s appearance.

Terrorism is something that is happening all over the world. The people who are responsible for these acts are called terrorist. These extremists use violent course of actions just to get their point across. According to the Oxford English Dictionary a terrorist is person who uses violent and intimidating methods in the pursuit of political aims; especially a member of a clandestine or expatriate organization aiming to coerce an establishment by acts of violence against it or its subjects. They will just kill thousands of people to get their point across to others who against them. Terrorist uses terrorism as their voice instead of actually talking. America has faced one of the most deadliest terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Many lives was lost on american soil. After this event, the hatred towards terrorist grew bigger. This brought discrimination towards Muslims american and other races.

Terrorism goal is to cause chaos and fear to whomever it strikes and that’s they did in 9/11. They put fear into americans where we don’t even trust our own people. Muslim Americans face the most discrimination because Al-Qaeda is a muslim terrorist group that attack the U.S on 9/11. They are constantly being harassed by their own nation that they don’t belong here and so on. Especially with our president, it just makes this matter even worse. According to the Atlantic written by Emma Green, “President Trump may have said he wants to ban Muslims from entering America,…”(Green 1). This is saying that Trump wants to ban all muslims from the United States. I believe that crazy how one’s action can justified the rest. What I’m saying here is with all these terrorist attack committed by muslims that we should ban all because they are all terrorist.What Trump said here that all muslims are terrorist and shouldn’t belong in the United States at all.The word terrorist has transform into something different then what it was stated in the Oxford English Dictionary. We are so blinded by fear and hatred that we don’t see the real thing. I believe that most people see that if they look like a terrorist they are a terrorist. Even our own president is using this word incorrectly. The person who is suppose to guide us to the right path is not doing his job correctly. Many don’t realize that this word hurt many of us because we are being blamed for something we didn’t even cause.

Muslims face the most discrimination just because how they look, speak and dress. They are being called a terrorist just because they look like one. Muslims have been attack many times, blamed, and arrested for just dressing the way they want. They are not dressing like this because they want to look like a terrorist but they actually like the clothes they wear and maybe of culture also. According to the Washington Post written by Abigail Hauslohner, “Those who appear Muslim-either because of the way they look,dress or speak-are significantly more likely to experience discrimination for being Muslim, and women overall are mostly likely to report discrimination than men”(Hauslohner 2).“Six percent said they were physically threatened or attacked…” (Hauslohner 2). Muslims can’t go about their day peacefully without being criticized by society because of the way they look. They are being attacked and threatened because of who they are. We are using this word to describe someone who look like one and not as someone who causes terror and chaos.

They have been many incidents where muslims are not the people who causes terror and chaos. There was a recent event happened in Pittsburgh which is classified as domestic terrorism. There was a shooting inside a Pittsburgh synagogue where it left 11 people dead and some in critical condition. According to New Hampshire Public Radio written by Dan Tuohy, “It’s an act of violence coupled with a mental state, and so whether it’s motivated by race or a political ideology in sort of how we define terrorism,..” “We also have to be very clear that the majority of these attacks are coming from white supremacists who are Americas,”he said.“These aren’t Islamist terrorists, these are empowered racists in America who are white with that agenda.”(Tuohy 1). What happen in Pittsburg wasn’t done by islamic people but done by our own people. Even americans are committing such crimes that are considered an act of terrorism. Terrorism is now being committed by all people and we can’t assume one race is something because we see these type of people do it all the time.

I had my own encounter with being discriminated, seeing it myself or even happened to my relatives. School was in session at this time. It was in the afternoon where all students will just leaving.I was going home from school and  decided to go take the train home. Their are usually cops with tables to check your bag if you had anything suspicious. As I entered I saw cops with a table in front of them. I see the cops call over a muslim man as I assume by the way he look. They began to search him because he had a big bag. As he was being searched, I saw a white male pass-by with  big bag also and he wasn’t search at all. I thought to myself why didn’t they search him also because he had a big bag. It was strange for that to happen but I realize later that they might of thought he had a bomb or something because what he look. I’m a Hindu but many mistake me as a muslims and so I get called a terrorist by others. This word terrorist has our people to turn on each other where we start to beat,harass,and threaten our own people just because they look the very people who caused us pain.

This word needs to be return back to its original roots where it’s used to classify someone who did something violently in political aims and not just by their appearance. We are wrongfully assuming muslims as terrorist and we need to look at what is really a terrorist. Instead of becoming better people we are going in back in time where we discriminated colored people because they are not white and so on. This is basically what we doing right now but toward muslims. In order to get past this we need to stop looking at appearance and focus more on what a terrorist really is and this corrupted meaning of terrorist out of our brains.