Islamophobia and Acts of Violence: The Targeting and Victimization of American Muslims

Description

"America has an egregious and protracted history involving violent and cruel practices used to dehumanize communities deemed to be the 'Other.' These documented acts began with the Indigenous People of the New World (theft of land and near genocide), the enslavement and legal constriction of African people for 350 years (theft of labor, freedom, and life), followed by the subjugation of Asian immigrants and Hispanic migrant workers (exploiting their labor and the nullification/denial of their entrepreneurship). These oppressive practices were introduced and initially sustained in the New World by White European colonizers primarily from England. Other European ethnic groups that immigrated to America and viewed as lesser or inferior, such as the Irish, Germans, Italians, and those from Eastern European nations, experienced otherness but navigated the American social vetting system until they were deemed White and thus accepted (Ignatiev,1995; Roediger, 2006). Within this sociopolitical crucible, racial identity, acceptance, or rejection are determined and managed as commodities or indicators of social worth. Both then and now, the social construction of group identities, such as the 'Other,' is designed to benefit White majority groups in various ways that yield cumulative advantages. However, to those groups deemed 'Other,' the process yields corresponding disadvantages. The process of labeling the Other and the structural systems in place to maintain these designations and their subsequent effects continue to strongly impact communities of color and those groups viewed as substantially different from the White Male Christian Heterosexism hegemony long established in the U.S.A. (Cadinu & Rothbart, 1996; Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament, 1971; Branscombe, Wann, Noel, & Coleman, 1993). The U.S. Muslim community, currently estimated at 3.45 million (Pew Research, 2018), has been made to feel the consequences of their perceived differentness, their otherness, sharply. Numerous incidents communicate to them and the public that there is a price exacted for Muslim differentness. The price includes the view of being perpetually foreign, culturally backward, violence-prone, misogynistic, espousing or agreeing with terrorist ideology, and representing an ongoing threat to America and Americans. Those who require this price may be acting from anti-Muslim sentiments, an aspect of Islamophobia. A multifaceted form of bigotry, the attributes of Islamophobia are discussed later in this chapter. However, the 'price' of Islamophobia is examined throughout this entire volume, and with that, the various faces of Islamophobia become more recognizable"--