Islamophobia as a form of racism
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Rana in Terrifying Muslims describes the process of reframing Islam into a racial category as speaking "to a wider historical discourse that emanates not only from racism [...], but also from the historical pre-eminence of imperialism and the maintenance of empire" (27). He explains how this is exemplified through the connection between Muslims, Native Americans, and Christians. Spanish colonisers applied their stereotypes of Muslims onto the Natives of the 'New World' as a way of successfully Othering them; both Muslims and Native Americans were treated as barbaric and depraved while the Christian Spaniards framed their own national identity around being different from them. This idea of the Other as interchangeable with each other blurred the lines between race and religion, since the colonisers simply rejected anyone who deviated from their idea of the norm. Such European conceptions of Islam migrated with them to the Americas, where African Muslim slaves were identified using racial terms like "Moor," despite not being Arab (Rana 40). What started as hatred and prejudice towards a Muslim Other soon became a way for colonisers to frame all Othered people, which is why Islamophobia today functions as a form of racism even for non-Muslims.
Arora and Husain refer to these blurred racial/religious lines in their respective articles, situating the effects of historical Islamophobia in the present day. Arora writes about how the 9/11-induced Islamophobia manifested itself as racism against turbaned Sikh men as well, just on account of the fact that their markers of racial difference are visibly evident through the turban. Husain similarly recounts how a white supremacist shot three South Asian immigrants, all from different countries and religions, but referred to himself as the "Arab Slayer." These incidents highlight how impossible it has become to distinguish Islamophobia from racism.
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This isn’t necessarily a reply to the first post here but I could not figure out how to make this post stand on its own so I’m putting it as a quick reply.
Though Husain begins his review with an example of the effects of 9/11 on Islamophobia, he does not limit himself to the time period that begins in 2001 and continues to today. It is a socio-historical study of Islamophobia through a long History that can help us characterize why Islamophobia shares many similarities to any other form or racism, despite being by definition, and by definition only, not associated to the concept of race. To understand why, we need to look first at the terrible practical aspect of this association that Junaid Raina puts forth. Rana writes “notions of racialized Muslims were placed on African slaves as enslavement was justified through a process of benevolent domination”. Through this, there is a clear association between race and Islam that is created in the process of the establishment of a rapport of strength. If we can understand this attempt at creating a superiority through this association, we can easily comprehend why Islamophobia has become another form of racism. A generalization of a whole population, which regroups Berbers of Morocco, Arabs of the Golf, or Pakistanis and Indians, under the banner of Islam, wether the individuals or even societies of this group are Muslim or not, has facilitated the development of a racial domination for whites. This includes on a national scale such as racial disparities in the United States, or on a more global scale in the establishment of North-South schism. As Husain explains through the anecdote of the Arab Slayer after 9/11, this creates a widespread stigma on this entire population group despite having no true association. To summarize, Islamophobia has grown to become more than a distrust, hatred or discrimation against a certain religion, but rather has become so entangled with the notion of race that it is as much a form of racism as anti-African or anti-Asian racism.