Life

#MuslimApologies Takes On Islamaphobia

by Emma Cueto

Well over a decade after the September 11th terrorist attacks, Islamaphobia unfortunately still continues in America, despite the fact that the vast, vast majority of the world's Muslims are definitively not terrorists. But as military action against ISIS moves forward and more and more people expect Muslims to publicly disavow the actions of terrorists and extremists, Muslims are pushing back on social media, including the hashtag #MuslimApologies on Twitter. Because at this point the endless expectation of apologies is just getting ridiculous.

The hashtag comes not long after another Muslim hashtag, #NotInMyName, with which Muslims have been denouncing terrorism and extremism. #MuslimApologies, though, also questions the need for Muslims to make such statements in the first place. Some tweets point out Muslims contributions to math and science, because if we're going to judge all Muslims by the actions of a few, we should include the great actions, too, right? Other tweets draw attention to Western hypocrisy, especially when in comes to Muslim women.

And still other tweets make semi-absurd apologies for anything and everything, since nowadays it feels like the Muslim community is expected to apologize for just about everything.

The hashtag is a great, tongue-in-cheek way to draw attention to the ongoing and frankly ludicrous expectation that Muslims must prove they don't agree with terrorists.

The first one may be the best: "Don't expect me to apologize for ISIS. I actually deserve an apology for your narrow minded stereotype of me."