Times Square bomber gets life sentence

If someone were to look at you, and judge you by the type of clothing you are wearing, how would that make you feel? What about your nationality? Skin color? Religion? Without making the effort of getting to know who you really are, and what kind of a person you are, they automatically make assumptions about you based on what they first notice. As we know, these assumptions the majority of times are incorrect and are not truly an accurate representation of who you really are. But, if people would take the time to get to know you better, they would be surprised to find out the person you really are. Unfortunately, people are not given that chance, and so these assumptions automatically are linked to that person. What is even worse is when people, who recognize they exist under a stereotype, they try to educate people on who they really are and prove to the world that, that stereotype is incorrect and a poor representation of themselves. They try to show they are good people and they deserve the right to be acknowledged as the person they truly are. Sometimes, these poor people are faced with the obstacle of people under the same stereotype adding to the inaccurate associations. So, the efforts of people trying to improve the situation are overshadowed by the people giving a bad representation. It is like taking one step forward, and two steps back.
An event as described above occurred recently in which a Pakistani immigrant tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square this past weekend. In the Record Journal article of "Times Square bomber gets life sentence", the bomber, Faisal Shahzad accepted a life sentence from this incident. Faisal apprently build a propane and gasoline bomb and drove it into Time Square, where he threatened to kill people. The reason as to why he did this was in order to protest Americans for occupying Muslim countries. He said, "We are only Muslims trying to defend our religion, people, homes and land, but if you call us terrorists, then we are proud terrorists and we will keep on terrorizing you until you leave our lands and people at peace" (Record Journal) Here, Faisal is trying to proclaim the reason of this bad act in the name of Islam and of Allah (God), which is not the actual purpose of God and this religion. Muslims are peaceful people, and the people in the Middle East are one of the most, if not the most generous and hospitable people in the world. If only people would take the chance to get to know them, and become more acquainted with this culture. After hearing this quote from Faisal, I began to wonder what Muslims were thinking and whether or not they supported this statement. I interviewed one of my friends, who is Muslim, on this matter and they said, "I do not support the statements made by Faisal Shahzad and I think that he is doing a diservice to me and people from my religion. I do my best to treat other people with respect and accept others of their differences and I in return expect people to do the same for me. I really hope that people don't think I am a terrorist." (Anonymous) I agree with this person's quote because we all need to be followers of the golden rule,"treat others the way you want to be treated."
Shahzad also claimed,"Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me the first droplet of the blood that will follow."(Record Journal) I include this quote not to alarm or frighten people, but I wanted to show that there is good and bad in every race/ethnicity. I think that if people were more educated and understanding of the Middle Eastern culture along with Muslims, they wouldn't have this fear or untolerable attitude towards this group. It is unfortunate that the actions of this man will now have a negative effect on Muslims in general, especially when Muslims are working so hard to improve their status and image in general,especially here in the United States. This is associated with the term ecological fallacy in which people erroneously base conclusions about individuals solely on the observation of groups (Babbie).
Public Relations representatives in the Middle East are working hard to improve their relationship with the United States and are trying to better the identity of its individuals by mending wrongs, and educating people with a better understanding. As the 10 year anniversary of September 11th, 2001 comes about next year, public relations practitioners in the Middle East are working hard to produce new campaigns and ways to connect with the United States. I believe all global citizens need to be more accepting of people different from you, break barriers, and get to know someone better before you judge them for their differences, and who knows, you may like what you discover and that person can potentially become a good friend of yours.