The Best Way to Combat Anti-Muslim Bias

The best way to curb anti-Muslim rhetoric the next time you witness it? Simply point out the other person’s hypocrisy. But do it with some tact.

A new study led by Emile Bruneau, a researcher and the director of the Peace and Conflict Neuroscience Lab at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, suggests that the best way to lower anti-Muslim feelings is to show individuals the hypocrisy of their stance.

Bruneau became interested in figuring out the most effective way of combating anti-Muslim prejudice after he noticed his liberal friends responding online to Islamophobic sentiment in the wake of terrorist attacks.

“They knew that there is a spike in hate crime and hate speech toward all Muslims after an attack by any Muslim and so they were deploying these [educational] videos,” Bruneau says of his friends. As time went on, Bruneau began to collect the videos he saw his friends posting online in order to determine whether the videos were actually working to combat Islamophobia.

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