What Causes Groups to be Stigmatized in the U.S.?

By Anonymous / Summer 2021

Isn’t it interesting that America became what it is today with the help of other races and religious practices from those very races? It was built on the sweat, blood and tears of immigrants to become the economy it is now. We all know this, but still inflict prejudice and hate onto each other thinking that those we give hate do not belong in America. This shallow views rather hurts, as I have also experienced receiving hate. I’m a Muslim American with parents who immigrated from Algeria. I have lived in the Bay Area most of my life and after a specific incident, I have always carried a fear in my heart. Fear of receiving hateful words or violence. The incident as I’m sure many know about is 9/11. The time when a terrorist group had “hijacked four commercial airplanes, deliberately crashing two of the planes into the upper floors of the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center complex and a third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The Twin Towers ultimately collapsed because of the damage sustained from the impacts and the resulting fires.” This disaster had taken many lives but had also ruined and hurt the image of Islam as a whole. This had caused anybody affiliated with Islam to be stigmatized for something that we had no control of. That is what started the hate crimes towards Muslims, as a person in that group was said to be a Muslim. Then people had received a lot of hate and those who wore clothes that resembled anything to do with Islam were attacked and hurt. Some were Muslim but others I heard of were actually Indian and had gotten mistaken due to some resemblance of their clothing. Another thing I had remembered that I was told of long ago as a kid was when a woman who was wearing a black Burqa had gotten attacked while wondering the streets and she is ending up having a miscarriage because of how badly she got hit. All the hate that Muslims have received, made me have this fear as a child that I would also get hit if people had known I was Muslim. So, I had lied to people or simply not told them what my Religion was or where my parents came from just to feel a little more secure. Even now, I still held on to some of that fear and start to think a little more before telling people my religion. As, even now there is a continuation of that Stigma towards Muslims, such as the Muslim Ban that Trump signed in 2017, which “banned foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from visiting the country for 90 days, suspended entry to the country of all Syrian refugees indefinitely and prohibited any other refugees from coming into the country for 120 days.” Sadly, this ban had been followed the next day and people had been denied entry, deported and in custody. We see here even in recent times this inequality, this stigma of Muslims as well as other immigrant groups still affect us today.

This brings me back to a question. What causes groups to be stigmatized? I feel like the most urgent problem in our social system that has yet to be dealt with even up to this day is racism. Simply a slight difference in appearance to another is enough for another person to judge and make an action based on that judgement. I always questioned, why is a person of a different race such a big idea? To me, it makes them unique and interesting to see someone who has a different background and culture. So, why do people fear such a difference? Is it the way they were raised? Is it their environment that made them have such a view? Well, even till today I don’t quiet have an answer for this but for now I would like to focus on the hate crimes that happen to entire religions or races. A prime example of the most recent issue in hate crime that we see today is that attacks against Asians due to Corona. At first, personally I had not seen hostility due to race on Asians but only since Corona started, did my feelings and thoughts about that change. With Corona, people had heard of symptoms similar to it that began spreading in China. Ever since that small detail had come out, people had begun to point fingers at the Asians for introducing it to the world. It was said that “During disease outbreaks, attacks on marginalized groups are not an exception, but the norm. This racism and xenophobia are additionally stoked by discourse that casts the bodies and behaviors of Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans as suspicious and even at fault for spreading disease.” This is something I couldn’t agree with more in this case and it’s true that when something big occurs there is always a group whether in terms or race or religion that gets blamed for it and in turn become victims of hate.

Right now, with all the hate crimes that Asian are receiving I can only imagine what their fear must be like. They most certainly feel like how they were in the past, “We were simply terrified; we kept indoors after dark for fear of being shot in the back. Children spit upon us as we passed by and called us rats” (Takaki page 149). Right now, we are back to another time of oppression, only this time for a different group. The biggest question is, why do people do this? Is there a need to point fingers at something you don’t completely understand? What exactly is the problem here? We do know for a fact that “viruses and other pathogens do not discriminate between hosts based on race, ethnicity, nationality or immigration status — stigma and misinformation certainly do.” We know that because people are different from each other in terms of race, or culture or upbringing there breeds racism. Racism is breed from fear of unknown, not enough information which therefore causes misinformation.

This misinformation spread like a rumor among people and therefore brings upon shallow views. Like for example, the time when Trump had said that Corona was a “foreign” virus. He had specifically said numerous times using the wording “Chinese Virus” instead of calling it the Corona virus. This act had given a negative view, a stigma against the Chinese as a whole for something that isn’t the responsibility of one race only. Along with his words and with little information of how Corona was first identified in China and rumors of a possible Lab Leek had sparked a flame. It had labeled all Asians to be at fault for the pandemic and started a cycle of hate once again. Maybe this is where you begin to ask again? That stigmatization is a new phenomenon in the United States but is it really? From what I remember, every race or religion has gone through hate at some point in time. Maybe the reason people do not realize this is because it hasn’t been talked about or that the hate other groups had received is minimal and therefore forgotten. In reality though, this hate has happened many times in the past. Like for example, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2. During that time in history, “on the Sunday morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese planes shattered the quiet sky and swooped down from the clouds to drop bombs on the ships anchored in the U.S. naval base of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.” This action caused the United States to go in a state of war and had also destroyed a view of the Japanese as they were labelled as “dangerous”. It had caused the removal of the Japanese even if they had been born in the United States. During that time, they were forced to leave to intermit camps and felt like they had no choice but to obey to this obvious inequality. The camps were said to reside on a wasteland and the life there was “oppressive and regimented, each day boring and tedious.” They were oppressed as a race and that oppression and force had made them feel like they had lost their freedom. As they were “forced to abandon the values of self-reliance and activity, shopkeepers and farmers suddenly found themselves working for the government for wages.” This way of living, this life had made them give up at some point and believe that there is no future for them. Even after they let them out of the camp, they had still gone through more hate as in “train stations, the returning internees were met with hostile signs: No Japs allowed no Japs welcome.” Some had their properties damaged and ruined fields. And the others were not able to return, as they were either too old, ill or broken in spirit as they died in the internment camps. When you hear this unfair treatment of a race what do you think? Does this remind you of what is happening now? We see that once something bad happens, people start to point fingers on whatever link they can get. They had stigmatized the entire race of Japanese for being dangerous due to an attack that most had nothing to do with living in the United States. When I think about this, all I feel is deep sadness for the people that have gone through the receiving end of hate. All I think is why? Why do other people have to hold responsibilities for something that has nothing to do with them? Why should they live in oppression and fear? They are obviously wronged yet why do we as a whole allow this to happen? Maybe the answer to that is because we don’t have enough information or have bad information which causes people act out on what little they currently have.

The saying goes, that “bad information cost lives”. This term, I couldn’t agree with more. As bad information also accounts to misinformation in my point of view. The “information” to me, the story that people are fed is the real problem. The portrait that is painted onto groups from people’s words is the issue, the fear that those words bring out is the issue. Such as in the past when people of different races were treated harshly due to their differences. That small difference and not knowing why they were different brought on fear. As we all know, things people do not know or cannot explain tend to bring in uncertainty of what would happen which in turn breeds fear. Like the past, when people of different color would be described as “a people of beastly living, without a God, law, religion.” They would also name them “devils” which is a strong word as it brings out the worst type of thinking in people. That word is connecting to “Intermixture and insurrection, violent sex and sexual violence, creation and destruction, life and death—the stuff of animal existence was rumbling at the gates of rational and moral judgment.” This projection that was painted to their race is what allowed others to be able to stigmatize them and therefore treat them in inhuman ways. They had in a way been branded with words that in reality was said to be “hidden and rejected instinctual parts of human nature.” In this case bad information definitely costed their lives and their freedom. The saddest part of this to me though, is the fact that people on their heart, in the back of their mind there is a voice saying, indicating that what they are doing or acting based on information they are not certain on is wrong. The question we all ask though is what is stopping them, us from seeing the truth? What is pushing us farther away or giving us reasons and justifications to treat people with hate? What is allowing us to think that everything is ok or not as bad as it seems?

I believe that in most cases it’s because the people either didn’t experience hate and believe that the hate that happens to different groups doesn’t affect them, as they don’t belong in that group. Though in reality, every group has gone through hate in some way and maybe it’s been a while, so they had forgotten. And if they had not gone through that hate as a race or religion then maybe they think it will never happen to them but in reality, they are wrong. Everyone is entangled together in some way, even if we don’t see it. Like for example the recent times of police brutality. Every person of color had obviously been mistreated or killed even when they had obviously not tried to attack or be aggressive towards the police in any way. Naturally because of all this brutality, the police have also a great amount of hate which is aimed mainly at whites that is only natural because of human nature. But I believe instead of staying in a cycle of revenge and hate towards race or religion or groups which are stigmatized, it’s better to empathy and love to save “the soul of America” as Dr. King had said. Which is an interesting saying as this meant more than just fixing freedom and inequality issues. The soul, the very essence of America, its core itself needs saving. “King believed that, like individuals, a nation is a spiritual and moral entity. The nation is not just an aggregation of isolated individuals; it is a collective entity with a distinctive identity and values–its soul.” For this soul to be saved we need to stop stigmatizing against each other, our Religions or race. Stigmatizing causes people to lose a piece of themselves and their culture which in my opinion America thrives on. America thrives on the diversity of the people, it’s different languages, culture, race and religion. Everything was built on these things and when forcing groups that fit in those categories to hate on each other causes loss. A loss that I have experienced, a pain I would feel when I had to lie about what I believe in. My identity that I had to deny and hide away, my culture and religion which I have loved even if I would find some faults within it. I loved it regardless, it made me feel love in a spiritual level and was something that was a comfort to me. Something I could rely on for my entire life and will continue to for as long as I breathe on this planet. My God, my culture, my people are where I feel I belong and do not want to lose. People may not realize it, but that loss not only affects me but also hurts the people as a whole. As that loss hurts the soul of America because as Dr. King had said, the soul is a collective entity of different identities and values which is pointing to the diversity of the people and what they bring along with them. What does this mean for us? How can we fix this? How can we save the nation soul? Well, this points to changing everything that it has been built upon, as the nation needs restructuring and change in a political, social, spiritual and moral level. Why do we have to reconstruct all of this? Well, these changes all build on each other like a chain reaction, so it is necessary to change each piece layer by layer to tackle the issues that we still face today.

Though the biggest question for most is how do we actually take action that can bring out the desire in people for change? Well, I believe the way to do so is through solidarity, which in a sense means we are “bound together and how we can act, in concert, to change our circumstances.” In a sense Solidarity means that we are “intertwined” and different at the same time. Through solidarity people can get through the walls of identity and connect people to each other who are not alike. Through this people can start to feel empathy towards others’ problems and set aside their own differences to go through change, to join others in their fights to reaching a common goal. This affect ends up creating a community of people and sets a tone that “we are all in this together.” This I feel like is something we need, we need to set aside our differences, our issues, our identities and try to understand the heart of the problem. Try to look deeply into what is wrong and in the case of hate crimes, I feel like the one thing people need to tackle this issue is to feel empathy. To understand what it is like, to put yourself in their shoes and by doing so can step out of the shadows and show solidarity. To work together for a common problem that race, religions, sex, and identities should not have to ever face. Just to stand up together and take action in nonviolent ways as to not breed anymore violence that is already happening. Like, in the Gilded Age in the American Experience of Triangle of Fire. Women were treated poorly at their workplaces that were in charge of making clothes. They were basically treated a labor slave with no time to eat, relax or go to the bathroom and on top of the long hours that they were needed to work just to help out their families, the amount of money they earned was very little. But this had changed after a fire had occurred within one of the buildings and taken the lives of many women and young girls. After this had happened, the women no longer listened and put on a strike. Most women who were working in multiple different companies stopped and worked to together towards a common goal. A goal for fair treatment, less hours and more pay which they had ended up winning because in reality they had more power than they had believed. They were the backbone of those companies, the hands and without them those companies could not survive. This is a lesson I feel like for everyone to take with them, when the fire happened people felt empathy towards those who had lost their loved ones or had lost their loved ones as well. Through that, through feeling another’s sorrow, they raised up in solidarity and worked together to fight for what was right. Another example I would like to include is the Civil Right Movement, which was a large campaign for African Americans and people who also agreed with their views in ending “racial discrimination, disenfranchisement and racial segregation in the United States.” This was a very long fight against discrimination and after years of “nonviolent resistance” and “civil disobedience campaigns” their voices had finally been heard which resulted in “new protections in federal law for the human rights of all Americans.” The Civil Rights Act of 1964 “banned all discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in employment practices, ended unequal application of voter registration requirements, and prohibited racial segregation in schools, at the workplace, and in public accommodations.” In this movement we see that people had all banded together in solidarity for a single goal even if they were not directly affected. They did so because that had seen deeper into the issue and saw that it had indirectly affected them. They felt that all humans regardless of race, sex, color and religion are all interconnected in some way or another and I would say that one thing that certainly connects people together is the power to be empathetic. To feel their pain and understand were the other is coming from which allows them to stand up against what is wrong and support those on the side that are receiving such bias. This idea reminds me of the picture below:

As the meaning of the interlocking hands here brings me back to the idea of all humans being entangled regardless of their identities and differences. It reminds me of when Dr. King had brought up “saving the soul of America” which basically means that America is a group of people who have different identities and values that make up the soul of America. And the way to saving this soul is to do the things our people have done in the past, fighting against what is wrong and standing together as one. This shows that only by uniting can people overcome any struggle for inclusion in democratic promises.

Through the end of this story, you may begin to question as to why you should care or be concerned with this? Well even if you think it doesn’t affect you or you can’t do anything about it. Well actually, it may affect you more than you would like to believe. As people experience hate most of the time due to being stigmatized or others using them as a scapegoat. Branded with being dangerous of some sort due to an event that they have no control over. Well, if this happens to groups then what’s to say the next person won’t, be you? If we don’t stop this cycle of hating on a Race, Religion, Sex or Race then it’s bound to happens to every group that lives on this planet at some point in time. This is something none of us want or deserves as even if it doesn’t happen now then maybe it is your grandkids who go through it. It’s a traumatizing event no matter the scale of hate one receives which is why we all need to band together and put a stop to it. Only by feeling empathy for those groups and taking action in solidarity can one save others and the “Soul of America”.

Works Cited

Lee, Matthew, and Health Policy Researcher. “Coronavirus Fears Show How 'Model Minority' Asian Americans Become the 'YELLOW Peril'.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 12 Mar. 2020.

“9/11 FAQs.” National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

“Lab Leak”. Radio Open Source.

Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy Assistant lecturer, and Dana Lindaman Associate Professor of French Studies. “Donald Trump's 'Chinese Virus': The Politics of Naming.” The Conversation, 25 May 2021.

“Timeline of the Muslim Ban.” ACLU of Washington, 10 Feb. 2020, aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban.

“To Save the Soul of AMERICA: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Renewal of America Today.” Reformed Journal, 24 Mar. 2018.

Taylor, Astra, and Leah Hunt-Hendrix. “Only Solidarity Can Save the Planet.” The New Republic, 3 Aug. 2021.

“Triangle Fire - a Deadly Factory Accident in New York.” American Experience.

Takaki, Ronald T. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Back Bay Books, 1993.