Edward Said Quotes

As a British Muslim, I am no stranger to prejudice. I know what it's like to be discriminated against just because of your background or religion.

All we talk about is 'Islamic terrorism.' If the two words are associated for long enough it's obviously going to have an effect on how people think about Muslims.

For the most part, the only contact that most Quebecers have with the world of Islam is through these images of violence, repeated over and over: wars, riots, bombs, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Boston marathon... The reaction is obvious: We'll have none of that here!

Seeing a man praying to Allah is enough for some people to assume he is a terrorist.

If you are black on television, you are probably going to be some kind of thug, gangster, or portrayed in a negative light. If you are some type of Muslim, you are going to be blowing stuff up. If you are Hispanic, you are going to be some type of gangbanger. I've felt like this for years.

One social evil for which the New Testament is clearly in part responsible is anti-Semitism.

In America, I've been told so many times that I look 'too Jewish' that I stopped counting.

A businessman admits that he 'let go' an employee because he was a Sunni Muslim. You simply have to look after yourself, he explains. I am shocked, like a good Westerner should be.

Yeah, I'm sure there are stereotypes of Asian people.

Non-Muslims with some justice now regard the Muslims as little better than animals.

… an influential gang of Jews

It is tragic that all Arabs—all Moslems—are stereotyped because of the actions of a few.

Muslims are backward and evil and if it is racist to say so... then racist I must be.

Pakistanis are rarely introduced in popular media in any form except as a member of your friendly terrorist cell next door.

You just don't see Muslims being matter-of-fact Muslim. They're always defined by their Muslim-ness. We're either terrorists, or we're fighting terrorists. I remember seeing 'True Lies' and going, 'Why are we always the bad guys?'

I did not want people to know that I was a Muslim; I did not want people to know my name or that I did not have an American name. I did not want that. Because I knew if they knew that, they would cast me as the bad guy.

We don't properly discriminate. We never discriminate properly when we're dealing with another group and one of the big problems about religion is that religious people don't know that they are probably as flagrant in these misjudgments as irreligious people.

It is all too easy to draw conclusions and make sweeping judgments about millions of Muslim women based on fleeting television images. That is not right.

It is necessary for us to explain the involuntary repugnance we possess for the nature and personality of the Jews. The Jews have never produced a true poet. Heinrich Heine reached the point where he duped himself into a poet, and was rewarded by his versified lies being set to music by our own composers. He was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization.

The pens sharpen – Islamophobia! No such thing. Primitive Middle Eastern religions, and most others, are much the same – Islam, Christianity and Judaism all define themselves through disgust for women's bodies.

I mean, but obviously, in people's eyes, it still - it can still link Islam to terrorism. I mean, why does it make a difference that they're white?

The Islamophobia phobes, (ph) the writers and the editors and the talking heads who deny an existence of evil while blaming those who speak up. There no difference - different than the apologists for communism. As communism killed millions, they, they denied it.

Whether religious or racial, anti-Semitism is always repugnant, one of the most destructive manifestations of human stupidity and evil. What is profoundly expressed in it is man's traditional mistrust of the man who is not part of his tribe, that 'other' who speaks a different language, whose skin is a different color, and who participates in mysterious rites and rituals.

I don't believe in stereotypes. Most of the time, stereotypes are just that.

Usually in films, when Muslims pray, it's either before or after they've blown something up.