I like to think that Americans aren’t ignorant. I mean, being American, I do find the assertion that most of us are ignorant to be offensive and a generalization that doesn’t speak for all Americans. However, I think an important part of life is humility; the ability to look at the actions of ourselves or a group we identify with and decide whether it is sensible or if it may be the worst “hot-take” someone could have. Through that understanding, if you were to ask me if Americans were ignorant, even though I want to say no, my answer would probably be yes. 

One of the main ideas that America draws from is consumerism. We like to buy things. More importantly, we like to buy things because we think they make us look better. It stems from the idea that fancy cars and nice clothes equates to having the money to buy fancy cars and clothes which equates to having the fancy job that can make the money to buy the fancy cars and clothes which equates to having the intelligence to get the fancy degree from the fancy school to make the money to buy the fancy cars and clothes. This association game that is so ingrained into the American psyche is what makes our world turn in the US. We equate a superficial characteristic with some deep, admirable quality. It isn’t just specific to clothes or cars either, we can see a person in a coffee shop reading Dante’s Inferno and equate that to them being an intellectual when they’re just using the book cover to cover up the fact that they’re reading 50 Shades of Grey. We make assumptions and connections that aren’t always warranted and generalize based on articles of clothing. Those generalizations can be based on cultural ideologies, but they can also be based on ideas popularized through pop-culture and media. Americans see a woman in a Hijab and equate that to the words “Islam” and “Terrorist” that they’ve seen plastered on their TV screens below a random image of a woman in Niqab without realizing that Niqab and Hijab are completely different. 

I think when it comes to the Muslim community, we don’t have the luxury of pretending our faith is unrelated to our identity. Islam is not just a belief system, but also a way of life. It is a religion that adapts and changes with time and was intended to do it as well. Islam is our culture; it is who we are. It is going to Eid prayers and seeing your friends from the Mosque, messing around with your friends in the children’s area during Taraweeh. The media attributes Muslims to be fanatics that focus on their religion only and that we would have a heart-attack if they saw a woman’s hair but that just isn’t true. But also, what have we done to alleviate that? A lot of American-born Muslims try to hide their faith because it acts like a scarlet letter, but it shouldn’t be. Islam doesn’t have to just be our religion, but it can also be our cultural identity and those are two completely different things. As we grow, some may decide that they do not identify with Islam as their faith but that does not mean that it is no longer their culture. 

Part of creating the characterization of a “Cafeteria Muslim” or “Cultural Muslim” is by being vocal about how we interact with our faith. I am proud to say that my cultural heritage hails from the Muslim world and I will always speak about the good memories I have of going to the mosque and the community, even if I don’t pray five times a day. I think our struggle as Muslims to create the idea of a “cafeteria Muslim” is our own personal inability to separate the idea of Muslim culture with the Islamic faith. In the Muslim community, at least the one I have grown up in, there are multiple people in the community that will say that you cannot call yourself a Muslim if you do x thing or act in y way. I think this public shaming that is staple in our culture needs to stop for younger Muslims to be comfortable with saying they are culturally Muslim. I know for a fact if I were to tell a couple aunties and uncles in the community that I was culturally Muslim they would yell at me and my parents, even though my parents themselves consider our family to be culturally Muslim. 

I understand that I intertwined multiple different ideas and I understand that it may be difficult to follow but I think it’s difficult to understand because it’s a difficult issue. We as Muslims may blame others for why there are negative characterizations about us and although those concerns are valid, there are still other issues that need to be addressed. Younger Muslims need to be comfortable with their faith and identity and not view them as one in the same. That understanding relies on a shift in the community itself, and that will come with time. As the community begins to accept the difference between faith and identity, younger, American-born Muslims will be comfortable with expressing their identity as being culturally Muslim and as they continue to do that, the characterization of Muslims in the media will change. There is no straight-forward solution and there are certain aspects of American culture that we cannot change. However, we can use them to our advantage and work towards creating an image of “Buffet Muslim”; a person who has grown up Muslim and was impacted by the culture of our religion, even if they may not follow it anymore or follow some aspects and not others. The culture of our religion is too beautiful to hide from the rest of the world. Our heritage is rich and vibrant, and we should work to share it and show the rest of the world that someone can be part of this culture, even if they don’t identify with the faith.