Most religions are violent.
The three Abrahamic religions most certainly are.
Islam is the most violent and backwards currently because the Wahhabis managed through oil money and such to defeat the intelligent, progressive community which was making genuine progress in the region, hence ######ing things quite significantly.
I am half-Arab and hence am often assumed to be Muslim. That said, I've never really had any problems with racism or xenophobia in Calgary, in fact I get along with 'hicks', the sort of person you'd expect to distrust me, just fine, better than I do with 'my own kind' (not that I even like that sort of thinking). What I have faced is a mild initial distrust, which I don't think is particularly unnatural. Heck, I don't get worried exactly but even I get slightly nervous around full-on bearded and robe-wearing types because I know for a fact that several of that sort do believe in, if not the 9/11 sort of terrorism, some form of Jihad as a noble cause. I get uncomfortable around extremist Zionist Jews, I get uncomfortable around White Supremacists, I get uncomfortable around Black Power folk, I get uncomfortable around any sort of hardcore person who advocates violence as a 'noble cause'. It's not wrong to distrust these people, it's sensible.
It will stop with education. There are several places in the world where Islam and huge Western populations exist peacefully with no violence at all. It's not hard to see that these places are areas with better education systems- Oman and the UAE being great examples with large expat populations and no animosity between them and the locals (for the most part). The worst areas in the world for terrorism are either poor areas or areas with a repressed and severely worrisome education system- Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc.
What must stop from the position of white people is the confusion of Islam for an ethnicity. There are plenty of Christian Arabs, plenty of us who don't practice any religion. As for other sorts of Muslims how can you really tell with a glance the difference between a Hindu or Christian Indian and a Muslim Indian, granted the Muslim isn't surrounded by veiled women and has a gigantic beard?
It's natural human behavior to distrust a group of people of which a minority has been responsible for much violence around the world. This only becomes a problem when generalizations and actual hatred come into play.
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