naturalplastic wrote:
But to change the subject slightly: though drawing mohammed is not the same as drawing racial cartoons saying that Islmaphobia is unconnected with racism is very niave.
Racial bigotry is often intertwined with other bigotries.
My mom talked about how folks in her childhood nieghborhood "wouldnt be seen talking to the Baptists" not because they had a problem with the theology of Baptism but because of class snobbery (the baptists were considered low class).
The first significant group of non protestants in america were the Irish. For a hundred years they were the only large group of catholics. So in America to be catholic was to be Irish ( and vice versa) and to hate Papism was to hate the Irish as a race. Racism and religous bigotry were one and the same ( the fact there were non Irish Catholics on other parts of the Planet didnt matter to either Irish nor to nonIrish americans). Only much latter when you had huge waves of Polish, Italian, Czech, and finnally, Hispanic immigrants in the 20th centurey to diversify and enlarge the american catholic population did race and Catholicism finnally get decoupled in the American mind.
In a white european country most muslims tend to be brown skinned, and a large proportion of brown skinned people tend to be muslim. So in such a situation its absurdly niave to assume that race and religous hostility dont overlap and dont reinforce each other. They may be intertwined, or they may not be. Either is possible.You cant assume either way.
You are saying that to deny the involvement of race in the discussion is to be naive but I am saying that it is brought up in almost every incident where someone cites something that is considered Islamophobic. Racism might be involved on a case-by-case basis, but is every critique by anyone of the religion Islam racist? Why is it the standard knee-jerk reaction? It's not that I don't that racism exists, it exists everywhere between people of different ethnic backgrounds. I just don't it plays a big a role when someone is critiquing Islam then the left and college-attending muslims like to believe.
Of those muslims on campus who are arab, I think it's self-centered of Arabs to assume racism when an argument is made against Islam. The world doesn't revolve around them and they aren't the only racial group who believes in Islam which wouldn't be surprising considering how group-oriented and tribal they are ie "my religion is me, and a denouncing of my religion is denouncing me, the arab."
As I said... it is cited by muslims of middle-eastern descent on college campuses, but surprisingly, the line is also towed far more often by the left in the US, and particularly non-muslim leftists on college campuses. White, black, indian, south east asian muslims who don't attend college all face bigotry as well, - even if its subtle or light overtones - but the impulse isn't to pin it on racism + Islamophobia. Why do they see it in every issue and aspect of life? There isn't anything constructive that you can say against Islam that those two groups (college going muslims and leftists) won't try to work in some way to highlight racism of people of middle eastern descent.
It is not healthy to see racism where it doesn't exist as it is not good for dialog. It's just a way of shutting up the opponent, because who wants to be called a racist... Islam and its followers should be just as open to criticism as Christianity, both from with and from outside of it as well.
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09 May 2011, 4:26 am
