That question would really depend on your definition of the term, for until you can really identify the definition you cannot say if America is or is not. Until that is brought forth, no real answer can be given, but we can look at the facts of the matter.
What are the facts? I think first you need to look at why the American people would be called Islamaphobic. It goes back to the attacks of 9/11 when America was attacked by a group of people claiming to be doing it in the name of Islam. These attacks hurt the American people in many ways, but one of those is most likely the strongest reason for the question at hand. This attack took away the feeling of safety and security from Americans. When this happened, it brought people to start looking at how they can stop another attack of this from happening. But what could they do? The first thing they could do, whether instinct or reasonable reaction, was to look out for people of the Islamic faith. Why? Simple. Because it was people claiming to be Islamic were the ones who planned and carried out the attack. Does that mean that all Islamic people were responsible? No, but that doesn't change the feeling that came naturally. Just like a person who is bitten by a dog is fearful of all dogs for a time. It is not because they hate dogs, but they are scared of being bitten again. That one dog who bit the person has taken all the trust that the person had in the K9 community and destroyed it with that one bite. That doesn't mean that all dogs bite, but that doesn't change the mind of that person, for all that person knows right now is that a dog bit them. It then takes time to rebuild that trust again. But then again, this is not the first time that we have been attacked. It was December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the country had the same reaction as the person who was bitten by the dog. Their trust in the Japanese was lost because of that attack and we took action against them.
The country made many Japanese live in internment camps because they didn't know who they could trust. This didn’t mean that all Japanese people were in on the attack, but the country needed something to regain their safety that they felt they had lost. Time has healed us from that attack, which was over 60 years ago, but the fact still remains that we, as humans, remain the same, untrusting of the people that have hurt them.
This problem is not limited to the people of America for the same fear lives within us all! The same goes in North and South Korea, Israel and most of the Islamic Middle East. We are a people who when hurt, lose trust in the other. So to be honest about the question whether or not America is Islamaphobic, it is probably a yes. But that doesn't make it a fair question to ask. Just like that reporter who was fired for saying that a Muslim in full garb scared him is nothing more than the natural reaction to being bitten by a dog. If we are honest with ourselves, we are all scared of a group of people when one of them hurts us, right or wrong. Our basic instinct gives us that fear so that we are careful to not let that happen again. So if you want to ask that question, then I think that it is only fair that you ask a woman who was raped by a man why she hates or is scared of all men.
So the conclusion that anyone can make is that the people of this country is hurting of an attack on their safety and so they are wanting anything to be done that would stop the attacks from happening again. So to ask the people not to be afraid is ridiculous, their needs to be healing done before it is even fair to ask anything of the people.
