On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was a college student in my third year at the University of Arizona. I woke up to shouts and screams from peers as they watched the second plane crash into the World Trade Center towers in New York City. Switching on my roommate’s small TV, I witnessed scenes of New Yorkers fleeing the destruction and chaos of the attacks. At that moment, we all felt deep sadness for the people in New York, but I also started to worry about my Muslim immigrant family and friends across the United States. Even though the attacks were far from Tucson, it was clear, even on that first day of news coverage, that the US media’s ignorance about Islam and Muslims meant that our religious and immigrant identities were going to be unjustly connected to the atrocity. More than two decades later, and now as a university professor and researcher, it’s clear how that moment shaped my understanding of the world and my place within it.
In those first few days after 9/11, I was worried that Pakistani and other students from Muslim-majority countries, including my then-boyfriend, might experience anti-Muslim discrimination based on racist ideas that connect Islam to criminal actions. Unfortunately, these fears became justified when we heard about Muslims being harassed on campus and in the city, friends being taken in for questioning by the FBI, and a spike in hate crimes against Muslims and others across the country. Four days later, on September 15, we learned the tragic story of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh American businessman who became the first 9/11 backlash casualty. Mr. Sodhi had been planting flowers in front of his gas station in Mesa, Arizona, when a white man shot him point blank in response to the 9/11 attacks. The man assumed that Sodhi was Muslim based on his turban, and therefore he was seen as responsible for violence that had nothing to do with him.
In the twenty-plus years since 9/11, the US-led “Global War on Terror” has marked a significant shift in the consequences of being racialized as a Muslim—being perceived as Muslim based on racist beliefs—in the United States. While Muslim history and anti-Muslim policies in the US extend back to the first enslaved African Muslims, the US Global War on Terror, or post-9/11 Wars, led to a massive uptick of official narratives that portrayed Muslims as foreign and dangerous, as well as government policies that criminalized people perceived as Muslim. Due to these anti-Muslim discourses and policies, being perceived, or racialized, as Muslim resulted in people experiencing discrimination, harassment, hate crimes, and even death.
If someone’s language use “sounds Muslim” to a person with racist ideas, it can lead to that person experiencing discrimination due to language-based anti-Muslim racism.
What we call this phenomenon matters. Although “Islamophobia” is the more recognizable term, many scholars and activists use the term “anti-Muslim racism” to explain how negative stereotypes and discourses about Muslims, based on both race and religion, are used to justify anti-Muslim discrimination. This mistreatment can take the form of individual actions such as mosque vandalism, hate speech, and hate crimes. But it can also involve institutional actions, such as biased news coverage, targeted policing, surveillance, anti-Muslim political discourses, and policies like the 2020 Muslim travel ban.
Calling this treatment anti-Muslim racism makes clear that it is related to other forms of racism, such as anti-Black, anti-immigrant, and anti-Arab racism. All of these forms of racism are based on official discourses, government policies, and media narratives that criminalize people because of their racial identity as well as other characteristics.
Racist Ways of Seeing and Listening
Following 9/11 and the start of the US-led post-9/11 Wars, news coverage, popular culture, and political discourse often misrepresent anything seen as “Muslim” as threatening. Assuming that a person or community is more prone to violence or criminal actions is inherently racist. Muslim Americans routinely experience discrimination, harassment, or even violence when they are racialized due to racist ideas that link phenotypic features (a person’s observable traits, such as skin color) or clothing (such as hijab or other Muslim dress) to negative stereotypes that imagine all Muslims as a homogenous group. In addition, these racist ideas are often perpetuated through negative stereotypes about people’s language use. Stereotyping people’s language use in this way is known as linguistic profiling. If someone’s language use “sounds Muslim” to a person with racist ideas, it can lead to that person experiencing discrimination due to language-based anti-Muslim racism.
Language-based anti-Muslim racism erases the humanity of the person who is using Muslim-sounding speech forms by imagining them as somehow threatening or dangerous because of their language use. For example, in April 2016, UC Berkeley student Khair-ul-deen Makhzoomi experienced language-based anti-Muslim racism on a Southwest Airlines flight after saying “Inshallah” (meaning “God willing” in Arabic) while speaking on the phone. A non-Arab woman passenger complained that his language use made her “feel uncomfortable,” and the airline workers had Makhzoomi removed from the plane. In this incident, physical appearance is relevant as well since Makhzoomi’s appearance as an Arab man alongside his use of Arabic was perceived through a racist lens that saw his language and appearance as threatening. Of course, Arabic as a language is not inherently Muslim, but conflating a language, religion, and assumptions about violence illustrates how language-based forms of anti-Muslim racism depend not only on racist ideas but also the enforcement of these ideas through the actions of individuals and institutions, like the woman passenger and Southwest Airlines in this case.
Since anti-Muslim racism emerges from racist stereotypes, the language does not need to be Arabic and the speakers need not be Muslim to be subjected to discrimination. For example, a passenger brutally beat a Sikh American bus operator while calling him a “terrorist” and “suicide bomber.” In another incident, an airplane passenger saw an Italian man writing differential equations in a notebook and became very afraid because she thought he was writing in Arabic. In each situation, language was interpreted in conjunction with physical appearance or clothing as indications of the person’s identity as a Muslim, drawing on racist ideas that make everyday activities suddenly appear dangerous. Anti-Muslim racism is so potent that even people who resemble an imagined Muslim stereotype can be targeted and physically harmed. This means that other communities including Sikhs, immigrants with foreign-sounding accents, brown immigrants, and others can also experience the negative effects of anti-Muslim racism.
In the more than twenty years since 9/11, anti-Muslim racism has unfortunately continued to grow across US society and impact Muslims and those perceived/racialized as Muslim. In 2015, FBI statistics showed that the rate of hate crimes against Muslims rose by 67% when Trump, who used his election campaign to call for a travel ban against Muslims, became a popular political figure. Alongside US political discourse, we have seen a rise in the number of anti-Muslim hate groups. These national-level, anti-Muslim phenomena contribute to the normalization of anti-Muslim sentiments across US society, including in schools and educational spaces. The impact of anti-Muslim racism is especially harmful to Muslim children and youth. A 2017 nationwide study on the US Muslim community found that 42% of Muslim parents with school-age children reported bullying of their children due to their faith, compared to 23% for Jewish or 20% for Protestant parents. Furthermore, 25% of the reported incidents involved a teacher or another school official, demonstrating the role that educators and institutional leaders play in enacting anti-Muslim ideas through official policies and actions. Although today’s brown and Black Muslim American youth, like previous generations, continue to experience anti-Muslim racism and discrimination across schools and colleges, there are many of us working to create more awareness and critical understandings of systemic forms of anti-Muslim racism.
Shutting Down Anti-Muslim Racism
Due to the pervasiveness of anti-Muslim racism in the US, Muslim American communities, particularly youth, have had to cope with everyday discrimination. In doing so, they have developed creative, innovative, and powerful ways to resist through their language, speech, and media production. I am part of a generation of Muslim youth who were students in 2001 and have since gone on to become researchers, journalists, activists, artists, filmmakers, and political leaders. In these different spheres, we work to challenge negative stereotypes and narratives about Muslims by revealing the underlying systems that animate anti-Muslim racism in the US and the broader world today.
One of my favorite videos of a young Muslim woman shutting down anti-Muslim racism comes from a 2018 news interview with Chicago’s WGN News. Hoda Katebi, an Iranian American fashion blogger, was invited to be interviewed by two white news anchors about her work, but the interview took a strange turn when one of the interviewers moved from the topic of fashion blogging to a question about Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Katebi responded with an explanation that critiqued the impact of US imperialism and its wars on countries in the Middle East. In response, the female interviewer said, “A lot of Americans might take offense to that. You’re an American. You don’t sound like an American when you say that.” Katebi countered the anchor’s accusation with a nuanced response:
That’s because I’ve read, you know. And I think that it’s really important that we look beyond these really simple narratives that we’re told, whether it’s about Muslim women, whether it’s about the legacy of this country, and knowing that this country literally was built on the backs of Black slaves and after the genocide of Indigenous people. And I think there’s a lot that we can be proud about, but I think that we shouldn’t let that blindside us to the realities of the situation.
Although language and communication are how anti-Muslim discourses are perpetuated, language can also be a resource for resistance.
Katebi’s answer highlights the importance of seeing beyond simple narratives that minimize the impact of US policies on different communities, and she indicates that her knowledge comes from critical sources that inform her understanding of the world and her place in it. In this case, the anchor’s characterization of Katebi as “not sounding American” was not because she had a foreign-sounding accent but because Katebi’s answer challenged the legitimacy of US foreign policy, questioned the circulation of simplistic narratives about Muslim women, and revealed the anchors’ ignorance on both these topics. This shows us that although language-based anti-Muslim racism presents itself in different ways, it should be understood as a way of seeing and hearing that normalizes and perpetuates racist ideas about Muslims and Islam.
Katebi’s response also illustrates a key strategy of resistance for youth looking to shut down anti-Muslim racism: seeking knowledge beyond the simple narratives that circulate in mainstream media discourses about the US, the Middle East, and Muslims. After the interview, Katebi used her community organizing experience to create the international book club #BecauseWe’veRead, which focuses on “challenging understandings of the status quo and mobilizing communities globally.” This is language-based resistance that inspires young people to collectively organize their own chapter of the book club #BecauseWe’veRead and to read and discuss books that present a more complete picture of Muslim experiences and historical narratives. There are now dozens of locally organized #BecauseWe’veRead chapters in the US and across the world. You can check here to see if there is a chapter near you or learn about how to start your own chapter.
Because We’ve Read, Because We Care, Because We Resist Together
Efforts to resist anti-Muslim racism are more important now than ever. The challenge for people who care about changing systems of injustice is to collectively resist simple narratives, negative stereotypes, and racist ideas so that we can work together to end racist policies and systems. Although language and communication are how anti-Muslim discourses are perpetuated, language can also be a resource for resistance, including language-based actions such as reading and discussing books as part of a book club community or learning about organizations whose research and creative media production educates the public about anti-Muslim racism. Language is also crucial to amplifying the creative, innovative, and powerful stories, art, and research coming from Muslim communities in the US and around the world.
In the years since 2001, I have continued to ask questions about observing, studying, and experiencing anti-Muslim racism in educational spaces. When things get hard (which they always do), my go-to strategy is to talk to other people doing similar kinds of work and find ways to support each other. As Black Muslim organizer and abolitionist Mariame Kaba reminds us, “Everything worthwhile is done with other people.” Although sometimes it feels overwhelming, talking to a trusted friend, family member, or peer is one of the best ways to stay connected, feel supported, and work through difficult conditions. Language can help us stay strong and resist together.
Top Image: CC BY | Viktor Nagornyy
