“When the news channels started speculating on the Muslim and Arab identities of those steering the planes, I started to feel the world closing in on me. I felt separated from everyone else who was watching the news and instantly knew that my life would change after that,” said Mona Amer, professor of psychology, The American University in Cairo.
Amer said she had experienced discrimination prior to 9/11, yet now felt the stares of strangers everywhere, so much so that she began to monitor her behavior in public spaces. Amer is one of many Arab and Muslim Americans who dealt with extra discrimination after 9/11, and were “triply traumatized” from it, a term coined by Wahiba Abu-Ras, a professor at Adelphi University.
Abu-Ras states that they were first traumatized by the horrifying attacks themselves, then by the backlash they received just for being Arab or Muslim. Finally, the discriminative policies created by the government scrutinized them, placing them as targets for harassment and further discrimination from fellow citizens.
Many of the US government’s “anti-terrorism” policies and initiatives that were put into place due to 9/11 were indiscriminately targeting Arab and Muslim Americans. Out of roughly 20 of these that were launched in the first 12 months following 9/11, 15 of them explicitly targeted Arabs and Muslims. The US government still does not recognise Arab Americans as a minority group.
There was a major increase in the amount of hate crimes against Arab and Muslim Americans following the Sept 11th attacks. “We went from seeing 30 or less in a given year, give or take, to 481 in 2001, most of them clustered around the two weeks of the World Trade Center and Pentagon [attacks],” said Brian Levin, California State University. Since then, hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims tend to spike whenever there is an attack overseas.
In June 2002, all men from certain Arab and Muslim countries were required to register to the government and be fingerprinted. No terrorism-related convictions were made as a result of the program.
The NYPD sponsored youth soccer and cricket teams to spy on the young people who played on them. The spying program (2002-2014) extended to many other states, such as PA, CT, and NJ. The NYPD later acknowledged that the program led to no leads or arrests either.
Every year, we are taught about 9/11 and how it affected the way we live. However, in learning this, we are never taught about how it affected Arab and Muslim Americans. Unfortunately, we can still see the effects today.
