Islamophobia can lead to vicious discrimination, something that I personally experienced in middle school. When I moved to New York in 2007, I adjusted and made new friends and everything was great for a time. That is until the day after bin Laden was killed, May 2, 2011. On May 3, when I opened up my locker, bin Laden’s photos came streaming out, covering the floor–someone had put photos through the slit at the top of my locker. This is the day when my  friends ostracized me and when students began chanting Osama’s name around me, belligerently ranting that I was a “Jihadist out for vengeance.” Their eyes lit up every time they did so, and I was forced to accept that I would be and was alone.

Unlike Hackley, my previous school was not diverse, and because I was naive, I did not tell my parents nor teachers about what had happened or what was occurring. Every day it got worse; sometimes I was punched in the stomach, sometimes cornered to get kickballs hurled at me, and a day would not pass where I was not called a terrorist, Jihadist, or Bin Laden. Islamophobia resulted in real trauma for me while I growing up; it came to the point where I contemplated my life’s worth.

Over the years, individuals would find me during public school track meets or see me around town and catch up on what we have been up to. Most importantly, all of them have said sorry. One acquaintance in particular, let us call him Rick, said his reason for bullying me was because he saw other students doing so. Rick wanted to fit in when he moved to Valhalla and this was his way to do so. He than proceeded to tell me that he wanted me to know that anything he had said was  never meant to attack me. After Rick, I came to realize that those that took part in bullying me did not bully me because they disliked me, but rather they only knew how to associate Muslims with terrorists and radicalism.

I believe their remarks were influenced heavily by media networks Fox News, who have effectively portrayed Islam in a negative light since 9/11. Cal Thomas in a segment of DEFCON 3 for Fox News on August 14, 2013 stated, “Islamism is a virus. It is penetrating every area of society.” According to an ABC poll in October 2001, 47% of Americans viewed Islam favorably, but by 2014 that number had dropped to 27%. It also does not help that a Pew Poll found that 60% of Americans do not know a Muslim personally. Recent remarks from politicians such as Donald Trump, who has proposed to ban Muslims from entering the United States and monitor those who are already in the country, only spread damaging Islamophobia and misconceptions about Islamic society – the same Islamophobia that affected me so strongly.

The media and politicians identify radical Islamists in many ways, such as with the word jihadist.  The word is now associated with it with extremists who use it to rationalize killing others when really the Quran and Hadiths, a collection of Prophet Muhammad’s teachings, state that the word Jihad should be used to refer as much to internal efforts to be good Muslims as any external efforts to defend the faith. In essence, Jihad is about protecting the Islamic faith from sin, with military force as a last resort; after all, the word “Islam” is derived from an Arabic word meaning “peace.”

We should remember the words of President George W. Bush, who in the aftermath of 9/11 said, “… Islam is peace … The terrorists are traitors to their own faith…”

The contrast between these words, and those of Bush’s brother and current presidential candidate Jeb, who has insinuated that the US should discriminate between Christian and Muslim refugees from Syria, demonstrate how Islamophobia has grown and festered over the years.  We must remember that the vast majority of Muslims are people who just want to seek pleasures of God (faithful), to be in love and peace with themselves, maintain harmony with all creations, and exemplify the attributes of prophets and saints.  Radical Islamists who claim they act in the name of Islam are blasphemers in the eyes of the true Islamic community for disregarding the teachings of the Quran.

If one Muslim child like me underwent this experience, who is to say it has not happened to another? Islamophobia has lead to discrimination against innocent Muslims, including children. They are unjustly blamed for the actions of radical Islamists, who are heretics themselves. If people understand Islam for what it is, rather than associate the entire religion with the extremists, then maybe the situation I found myself in can be avoided by the majority. Islamophobia is damaging to both non-muslims and the muslim community; life would be better without it. There will always be some arrogant people, so the best thing to do is to stand up for those who are being discriminated and learn a little more about Islam yourself.