Stereotyping Just Kills Me

November 13, 2008 Our lectures today were about women in Islam. Yesterday I had a chance to experience first hand the lengths women must go through to “protect” themselves in this Muslim culture. Our lecturers talked about women and equality in Islam. The other day, we were told that the Quran promotes equality between men and women but there are also verses that make it clear that men and women are not equal. Several people from our class tried to talk about this issue with one of the speakers but the speakers became very defensive and didn’t want to talk about the issue. At first I thought that they didn’t understand the questions being asked but I came to realize that they were just defending their religion. This makes me a little angry because I still haven’t gotten over wearing a scarf on my head yesterday. I guess that the culture that I was raised in is just really ingrained into who I am. I sometimes have a hard time understanding Christianity and I was raised in a Christian household. I am trying to figure out how I am supposed to understand these new religions in the little time that we have learning about them. My perceptions of Muslims have changed over the past few months of being in India, but I know that there is still a part of me the associates being Muslim with being a terrorist. I am ashamed to say this, but it is true. The other day we were having a lecture and there was a Muslim man making sure that the microphone was working. I looked at him and saw a terrorist. He fit the stereotype of how a terrorist looks perfectly. I couldn’t believe that I was thinking about this man in this way. I am so upset with myself. I think that I am so open-minded and that I have few prejudices and yet here I am making a judgment about a man I never met before. This makes me realize how powerful messages are in the United States culture about who a terrorist is and what he looks like. I don’t know what to think about myself right now. I am so ashamed that I have let myself be negatively influenced by the perceptions of my culture. This has hurt me so much. I didn’t want to say anything about this to anyone in the group because I was afraid of what they would say about me. I need to get rid of these thoughts before they eat me up inside. I still have so much left to learn about India and so much left to learn about myself.