Fantasies about Muslims are convincing. Muslim men are viewed as terroristic villains, despite the fact that statistically, an infinitesimally small number of Muslims participate in violent political acts. These representations matter; if they did not, we would not have “the Muslim problem,” a phrase that American news host Bill O’ Reilly uses to describe the existence of Muslims as a pestilence, a biblical descriptor that has anti-Semitic resonances of “the Jewish problem” and suggests that a solution must be found.

FICTION: The framing of 'the Muslim problem' as a pestilence invites stories about how loaded language constructs an outgroup and calls for a 'solution.' QUESTION: What evidence exists on the gap between actual rates of Muslim political violence and public perception? Would be worth gathering more data.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 38