[United States / New York / Muslim Community] - The Traumatized Self Scapegoats the Innocent to Feel Safe

Event Baseline: On the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Muslim New Yorkers recalled widespread stigmatization and discrimination in the aftermath.

The collective trauma of one event became a license to punish an entire identity. The self, terrified of its own vulnerability, projected its fear onto a visible other. It confused the attacker with the bystander because both shared a label. The mind did not perceive bodies; it perceived categories. The category 'Muslim' became a threat symbol in the mechanical brain.

This is the same reflex that drives all tribal violence. The victim of terror became the perpetrator of stigma. There is no healing because the wound is the belief in the separate self. Until that belief dies, every tragedy will produce a new scapegoat. The cycle is automatic. The only cessation is the perception that the other is the self.