In the society we live in today, we are often told what to think -- what to wear, what our roles are in society, or who we should trust. We are constantly bombarded with opinions and information to accept as truth. However, many times the information we are told is heavily biased and we are told only one side of the story. Due to our own lack of knowledge, we easily accept these biased statements, with their subliminal messages, as a way to represent what we do not understand.
Oftentimes, we forget that the best and most reliable way to relinquish that ignorance is by asking those who identify with that culture or religion. This is the case of many minority groups today, but with the recent increase of anti-Islamic propaganda fed to us by various new outlets, politicians, and media, the lack of individual thought has become alarming.
In the media, Muslims as a whole are portrayed as barbaric, oppressive, violent and backwards. We are linked with the heinous crimes and actions of groups across the world who hide behind guise of sharing a religion with us. We are called "terrorists" and repeatedly told to "go back to our own countries." But with over 1.6 billion Muslims across the globe, you would think that people would have enough sense to understand that what they are being told about Muslims could not possibly be true about such a large portion of the global population. After all, those "Muzlems" have behaviors that would destroy society beyond repair within a few decades.
Unfortunately, an alarming amount of the population cannot make this connection and has no interest in finding out the truth themselves. Thus, the burden of constantly defending the faith we love falls onto the majority of Muslims who do not believe in what the much louder extremist minority of "Muslims" believe to represent Islam.
Now this is where we step in.
The Society of Young Muslim is group of Muslim women who, as a group, believe it is time to take back the Muslim narrative. As Americans, we come from a balance of identities like the rest of the population. We are women, Muslims, students, community engagers, movers and shakers and we are each a beautiful cacophony of the American Dream and our various cultures and races. We have different ideals, hobbies, and senses of self and we are tired of the media telling us that we can only be what they say we are. So what are we? I'm glad you asked, since we actually decided to make a video about it.
Raging hatred against populations is not an American belief, and yet it is becoming so much more common to do so. It's time to stop believing everything we hear, especially when it comes to "truths" about entire populations of people and it's time to start thinking on our own and away from that group mentality.