In today’s society, people of the Islamic faith have become the target of hatred caused by misconceptions about their culture. Recent acts of terrorism by radical Islamic extremists, such as the San Bernardino shootings, Paris attacks, and Brussels bombings, have caused other Americans to develop a skewed perspective of Muslims. Failure to understand Islam has culminated in the defamation of mosques, ethnic profiling of Muslims, and anti-Muslim protests across the nation.

On Saturday, April 2nd, on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Dallas, Texas, outside a Nation of Islam mosque, anti-Muslim protesters from the Bureau of American Islamic Relations gathered with semi-automatic rifles and skeleton masks. Their message rang loud and clear: Muslims aren’t welcome in America. These anti-Muslim demonstrations interfered with Muslim-Americans’ right to freedom of religion. While most Muslims have done nothing wrong, misconceptions surrounding their culture have formed a hatred that threatens the nation.

Ahmed Mohamed was also subjected to this growing Islamophobia. He was arrested for a bomb hoax after bringing in a homemade alarm clock to show his teachers at his Irving, Texas, high school. Instead of asking Mohamed what his device actually was, authorities assumed it was a malicious machine designed to kill. Mohamed is a Muslim. Would a white student receive a similar response if he or she created a similar device? Mohamed was denied the right to be creative because he was Muslim. People fear him even if he is an innocent young man because they don’t comprehend his culture.

The fact of the matter is, in the present state of the world, Muslim is becoming synonymous with terrorist, and this has to do with the lack of understanding of the Islamic faith. Islamophobia mirrors the hatred directed toward black Americans in the 1950s as whites justified their oppressive actions with their inability to comprehend the African American community. Misperceptions about cultures, such as those experienced by blacks in the 1950s and Muslims today, cause fear, which eventually manifests into hatred. This hatred blinds American citizens and causes them to act irrationally. They become hypocrites who deny other Americans their constitutional rights. It is the duty of the majority not to toss aside a minority because their cultures are incomprehensible at first. They must, instead, make it their mission to understand these cultures before casting any judgement about them. It is impossible to understand everything in this world, but instead of responding to the unknown with fear and hatred, Americans should adopt curiosity and open-mindedness and set out to understand the mysteries of society.