course material

1. 1. Religion has had its ups and downs. Now that
1.Religion has had its ups and downs. Now that social media outlets have become more
popular, people have more to say. Things like stereotyping, bias, racial profiling, are talked
about in social media outlets for reasons like spreading awareness, support, or even
bullying and racism. Media in general, have always used their platform to spread news
whether their good or bad, to create stereotypes, whether their true or not. Personal
opinions are most definitely fueled by social media outlets, regardless of their intentions. It
most definitely affects how we view and understand religious beliefs because we are
listening to someone talking about it. People join a religion for many reasons like family
culture, support, help, etc. For many, religion brings cultural values, beliefs, ritual practices,
meaning, and much more (Religion in Contemporary Society, 2017). 2. Reli-gious profil-ing,
like racial profil-ing, perpetu-ates negat-ive stereo-types held by the public. In a recent
Gallup poll, most Amer-ic-ans held an unfa-vor-able view of Islam. Many state legis-latures
are consid­er­ing “anti-Sharia” legis­la­tion that would come close to crim­in­al­iz­ing the
prac­tice of Islam. Amer­ican Muslims’ efforts to build mosques where their famil-ies and
communit-ies can gather have encountered protests, lawsuits, and even zoning law changes.
Most disturb-ing, the FBI reports that there were over 1,500 hate crimes against Muslims
between 2001 and 2009. The brutal murder of Shaima Alawadi, a mother of five, is only the
most recent example. Our law enforce-ment agen-cies have a solemn respons-ib-il-ity to
keep us safe. Never-the-less, reli-gious profil-ing, like racial profil-ing, betrays our values
without any bene-fit to our secur-ity. Instead of rely-ing on stereo-types, law enforce-ment
offi-cials should focus on signs of actual crim-inal conduct. Furthermore, they should build
solid and trust-ing rela-tion-ships with Amer-ican Muslims communit-iesre-la-tion-ships
that will enable us to fight our common enemy. In today’s society, stereotyping, bias, and
racial profiling intersect with religion in that religion is often the cause of discriminatory
stereotypes. For example, people who practice Islam often face discrimination because of
false stereotypes about the religion’s connection to terrorism. Religion is also used to justify
discriminatory behavior, such as how some Christians cite the Bible to discriminate against
same-sex couples Reli-gious profil-ing is also inef-fect-ive. Terror-ists come from diverse
back-grounds and, as law enforce-ment offi-cials acknow-ledge, are aware of profiles and
how to avoid them. As they comprise a minis-cule frac-tion of any given reli-gion or
ethni-city, it is unlikely that programs focus-ing on entire communit-ies will be success-ful
in identi­fy­ing terror­ists. For example, there is no evid­ence that the NYPD’s infilt­ra­tion
of mosques uncovered any terror-ist plots that did not origin-ate with the police

2. them-selves. Moreover, as with racial profil-ing, reli-gious profil-ing alien-ates those
profiled, in this case, Amer-ican Muslims. This is a step back-ward for coun-terter-ror-ism
efforts, as the cooper-a-tion of Muslim communit-ies has been crucial to foil-ing some 35
percent of recent terror-ist plots. 3. Currently, there are multiple ways in which religion
intersects with stereotyping and bias. For the most part, these obstacles arise at times when
the differences between community members are too challenging and require additional
effort to overcome the problem. According to Maydell (2018), mass media is one of the key
generators of stereotypical thinking and biased worldviews due to the magnitude of its
force. Even a person’s religious beliefs could be altered by the media if the required ideas
are conveyed compellingly and in a rather persuasive manner. This intangible agenda helps
the media control how certain societal cohorts are portrayed and perceived. Irrespective of
a person’s outlook on certain sensitive topics, they could become a victim of prejudice and
firmly delivered lies or misconceptions. The first example of how mass media operates
bias and dishonesties to address religion is the level of treatment received by minorities.
According to Shamilishvili (2019), religious minorities are practically enslaved by
stereotypes because different roles in society are rather hard to break or amend when they
intertwine with religious convictions. This is a significant problem for the contemporary
community because it forces people to remain unaware and only pick one side when
looking at ethical and socio-economic dilemmas. A similar idea is also covered in Luqiu and
Yang’s (2018) article, where the authors addressed the imminent power of mass media in
terms of covering terrorism or association with a certain group. In China, for instance, Islam
is often displayed as a threatening religion in order to maintain domestic social stability
(Luqiu & Yang, 2018). Thus, mass media could be utilized to oppress followers of specific
religions in order to give more power to the local government.