Author: Aidan Lewis
Race and ethnicity have always been dominant themes of American history. In our intricate web of exchange and controversy, no aspects of society have received more attention. Concepts and circumstances like slavery, immigration, the Civil Rights Movement, and the patchwork nature of our civilization have always dictated our conversations and interactions. While racism is still prevalent in America, injustices and slurs against minorities usually receive widespread acknowledgement as such, with one exception – racism against Muslims.
Before I elaborate, allow me to preemptively counter an objection. I’m fully aware that “Muslim” is not a racial classification. However, hostility and injustices towards Muslims are indubitably grounded in racial association. Most Americans, when they think of a Muslim, picture someone whose features and mannerisms are stereotypically Arab. The reality is that Arab Muslims make up a very small percentage of the Muslim population worldwide; Indonesia alone has more Muslims than all the Arab nations combined. Since biases against Muslims are so often rooted in the incorrect assumption that all Muslims have Arab features or practices, these biases are indeed a form of racism.
By equating “Muslim” with “Arab,” we ignore a majority of Muslims whose cultural, lingual, and social traditions are very distinct from those of Arab countries. From this first faulty jump in reasoning we quickly make a second: because most acts of terrorism and fanaticism are performed by Muslims (for now synonymous with “Arabs”), Muslims must be inherently fanatical and terroristic. Though this fanaticism might not manifest itself in actual violence, Muslims subconsciously promote a violent and reckless ideology.
The glimpse we most frequently have of Muslims is that of Muslim terrorists; most terrorists of repute are Arabs, and Arabs are Muslims. The circle of poor logic is absurd, but it is not entirely the American public’s fault. The media, specifically conservative media, focuses obsessively on Muslim extremism. Cartoons, newscasters, and films constantly center their discussion of Muslims in light of terrorism. The media doesn’t always intend to label Muslims as terrorists, but the topic of terrorism dominates all discussion of Islam. Even well-meaning media outlets couple the themes of Islam and terrorism so frequently that a connection inevitably establishes itself in our minds.
The result is the emergence and reemergence of suspicion, hostility, and sometimes outright violence towards Muslims throughout our society. A foul example of racism against Muslims is the murder of Sikhs since September 11th. Their customary turbans made some Sikhs targets for anti-Arab violence. This lead to crimes that were not only morally awful but factually wrong. A less lethal but more common injustice is the treatment of Middle Easterners in American airports. I recently heard a student narrate how airport officials carefully frisked and interrogated her Syrian friend, a female college student, despite the fact that she carried a student visa for the U.S.A.
Over the past year we have listened to a flood of malicious lies regarding Barack Obama’s real identity, many suggesting – or proclaiming – that he is secretly a Muslim with extremist sympathies. The media, politicians, and bloggers have incessantly maligned and insulted him by challenging things as trivial as his middle name, Hussein. Some people, thankfully, have responded to the slander with the contempt it deserves, but for the most part, Americans accepted this as an appropriate field for attack. The fact that it is so widely viewed as acceptable for Americans to wield Islam as a tool for libel, or even fair criticism, is abominable. If there is any forgotten race in the stampede for racial equity, it is the non-race: Muslims.
Aidan Lewis is a first-year ECLS major. He can be reached at alewis@oxy.edu.
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