Why Americans Believe Obama is a Muslim

In honor of the material studied this week, this article summarizes the findings from a recent study done at Michigan State. The purpose of the study was to find out how many Americans believe that President Obama, a practicing Christian, is a Muslim and what factors contribute to this falsehood. According to a poll, as of August 2010, an astonishing 18% of Americans believed Obama practices Islam. The researchers at Michigan cited the most likely cause of this widespread rumor is the "irresponsible media outlets" that tend to highlight Obama's differences from the general American society, such as race, social class, or ideological discrepancies. Psychologically, this lack of unity with our leader and widespread distrust has "motivate[d] acceptance of these lies." I found this article very interesting because it touches on one of our main talking points this week in class: America's negative preconceived notion of a violent, barbaric religion that isn't much different from the rest of the world's most common religions. Since Obama’s presidency hasn’t been quite as successful as people had hoped, people are quick to associate him with Muslims, and unfortunately, this negative stereotype remains present in our society.