Husain on Muslim Whiteness and Off-Whiteness
-
In Husain’s article, we can see a critique of Muslim whiteness or “off-whiteness.” Black Muslims in the article are seen critiquing this Muslim whiteness due to the privilege that it can afford to a person. Indeed, compared to Black Muslims, white Muslims are privileged within the broader society. We do see a certain racialization of white Muslims, especially if they have a physical marker of Islam, such as the hijab. In the article, Husain gives an example of a Muslim white woman named Allison, whom she interviewed and asked about her experience as a hijabi woman (Husain, 595). She told the story of when she was discriminated against in a public washroom by another white woman. Because of her hijab, she was identified as Muslim, therefore, as not white. This assumption that she is not white based on her wearing the hijab, thus being Muslim, brings up this idea of there being an opposition between whiteness and being Muslim (Husain, 596). This places white Muslims in an in-between space, where they might have the racial privileges that Black Muslims do not have but are still being discriminated against, especially when having clear physical markers of their faith. This suggests that whiteness and Islam are incompatible since this lens of racialized Islamophobia makes it so the visible markers of Islam override whiteness. Paula, another white Muslim woman mentioned in Husain’s article, talks about how being both Black and Muslim is not seen as “weird” (Husain, 596), whereas being a visible Muslim when white is “odd” and “dangerous” (Husain, 596). This emphasizes the racialization of Islam within white societies, again placing whiteness and being visibly Muslim on opposite ends. Consequently, visible markers of Islam further complicate one’s identity, thus redefining them.