In her article, “How Islamophobia was ingrained in America’s Legal System Long Before The War on Terror”, Mariam Elba discusses how Islamophobia is deeply rooted in American culture. This shocked me. I had always believed that islamophobic feelings and fears began after 9/11. One quote from the article that really stuck me was, “has always been a legal framework in place that defines Islam and Muslim identity as incompatible with Americanness.” (Beydoun). This is very hypocritical in my eyes. America is suppose to be a place of religious refuge and religious freedom. Why is that not the case for Islam and Muslim peoples? Why do many Americans view islamic religion as different than any other religion? I found it interesting that in the article Islamophobia is linked to Orientalism. I do see a lot of the comparisons. Do Americans constantly need a race/religion to demonize? This article left me with one main question: How does the government get away with putting in policies that promote the discrimination of a religious group?
Blog Post for 11/11/20
Published inUncategorized
While I am not surprised by the arguments made in this article, something striking that Elba writes from Beydoun’s research is how the Muslim identity became racialized over time. This led to the Naturalization Act of 1790, which mandated whiteness as a prerequisite for citizenship. To support their case of whiteness, Arabs and South Asians would commit acts of anti-black racism since this was- and still is- an integral part of the collective white identity. This was disheartening to hear that America continues to turn minorities against one another.
Similarly to you, I also previously thought that Islamophobic feelings in the United States began after 9/11. After reading the article, I was surprised to learn that the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis created Americans dangerous views of Muslims.
I agree with your questioning of why Muslims seem to be the main religion that gets treated so poorly in America. We are a country built on religious freedom. It makes me really concerned that we are so willingly and knowingly not living up to that standard that we owe all of our citizens.
I agree with you that it is certainly strange and unacceptable that ISlam has not been accepted in society when the US has been preaching that it should. The US provides itself on the separation of church and state and was founded on religious tolerance for all. But even when evaluating these two facts you see that they never intended for Islam to be accepted because they say church and not mosque, and because when they were thinking of religious tolerance it was for the protestant from the catholics.