One thing that upsets me is Islamophobia. And yet, I can only imagine what it must be like for people from Islam countries and/or faith. Many of my friends are Muslim, and it saddens me that anyone would call them out as violent just because a small fraction of people who claim they are the same religion are.I am not arguing religion and its varying interpretations (although I do believe that violence is the work of extremists, whose claims say nothing about the entirety of the religion). But what I am arguing is that ISIS does not represent all people of the Muslim religion. And yet, there are people out there who think that it is okay to let them be the sole representation of an entire culture. Tell me if I'm wrong, but isn't it a little silly to believe the claims of what a religion is by a group of violent and sick group of people over people who are peaceful and sane?
There are people of every race (a word I use lightly, since we are all members of the human race) who engage in violent, terrorist activities. And yes, that does include white people, as well as people of every ethnicity, culture, religion, etc. But it doesn't represent their entire group; it represents the individuals. Because if we were going to blame entire groups, we're talking about blaming all white people for the KKK, and all Christians for the crusades.
I've heard too many racist comments. And worse, people easily shrug it off. They say they didn't mean it "that way." Guess what? What you might think is a little, silly comment, really has a lot of power. It adds onto the Islamophobia that too many individuals face. And the comics and jokes aren't funny either. I mean, are you laughing at the body count at the hand or terrorists, or the fact that innocent people are being tormented for actions they didn't even commit? Because if you answered either, well, it's not a very good answer.
Violence around the world isn't the responsibility of a group of people just because they share a quality or two with the terrorists. If so, then in Canada, we have a lot of responsibility to take. I mean, there's so much violence that happens right here, by its very own citizens. If anything, it's all our responsibility to do our part in ending it, and to relevantly protect the individuals who are targets of false labels.The main purpose of this post is to raise awareness. Too many of my friends deal with this, and it's not in any way okay. I feel like it's a topic that is ignored by mostly everyone except the groups that have to deal with it first-hand. Racism, however, is a societal issue. This is one form of it, and as members of society, it's all our jobs to put a stop to it.
