Why do you think it's so hard for non-Muslim Americans to separate the politics or current events in Islamic countries from the religion itself?

"It's so hard to separate politics from the religion, because they are so intertwined in our collective cultural consciousness. Throughout every decade, media and pop culture coverage of Muslims has been negative. In fact, one thing I cut from this episode was a montage highlighting the constant media coverage and pop culture depictions of Muslims as terrorists. The pervasiveness of these images helped normalize prejudice against Muslims and Arab culture. We rarely revisit these Hollywood caricatures. It's only recently that we started making new narratives drawing attention to the differences between ISIS and Islam."