We asked some West High Muslims about their experiences with stereotypes

Compiled by Cameron Cook and Sharon Xiang

Once [my family] was at Six Flags, and we were exiting the park, because there was a winter storm warning and everyone was going home. As we were leaving, there was a group of people sitting down, and one of them shouted out, ‘Hey, what’s that thing on your head?’
	One time, I was working at Panera Bread, and I was wearing my headscarf, and this old man whose name was Bob randomly tells me, ‘You know, we’re never going to forgive you for 9/11.’ I was like, ‘Excuse you, what do you mean, you, like you’re speaking to me?’
Obviously, what’s perpetrated in the news becomes bias to American society. If they see things that are happening with extremism, they’ll assume [Islam] is associated with that. That association doesn’t make sense, but you can see those examples of discrimination. You don’t associate yourself with it.
At Chapel Hill, they didn’t say three Muslims were killed by a caucasian, they would just say three Americans were killed by an American. Imagine if it were a Muslim killing three Americans. They would say a terrorist killed three Americans; they would bring religion behind it. I know we’re not making a good name for ourselves in the news, but everyone is so close minded to think everyone’s [all Muslims] the same.
	Of course, if you go out on Google, and you Google Islam, there’s a lot of hate websites. You also have to make sure to find authentic knowledge, which we take from the Koran, which is the word of God, and also the teachings of the prophet Muhammad.
The guy who shot up the movie theater or the Sandy Hook shooter or the KKK, all these people – they are terrorists but we never call them terrorists because they’re not Muslims, so we call them mental, or they grew up in a tough life. The Sandy Hook shooting, the movie theater shooting and the Boston bombing all happen at the same time. The two didn’t get called terrorists, but the Boston bombers were called terrorists simply because they’re Muslim.
	One time on 9/11, Dr. A had a silent moment and everybody just automatically looked at me. When 9/11 happened, I was five years old and somebody ripped me out of my mom’s hands and said ‘Don’t raise a terrorist‘.

For more about Islamophobia and the misconceptions about Muslims and Islam, read the full story in the April 10 issue of West Side Story.