Fighting Oppression Project

Ned and Jackson discuss the history of Islamophobia in the US, starting with the Nationalization Act of 1790. They mention significant events like the Iranian hostage crisis and 9/11, which intensified Islamophobia. They talk about the media's role in sensationalizing terrorism and creating stereotypes. They also discuss the impact of Islamophobia on Muslim Americans, including difficulty obtaining citizenship and discrimination. They mention the Oklahoma City bombing and the killing of a young Muslim boy as examples of Islamophobia in action. They highlight the need for activism to combat this oppression. Hi, I'm Ned, and I'm Jackson, and we're going to be looking at a brief history of Islamophobia, and then how Islamophobia has sensationalized a face for terrorism, and how the roots of Islamophobia created by significant events like 9-11 and the Iranian hostage crisis still plague American society and politics today. So first, looking at our history of Islamophobia in the U.S., we'll be looking at the beginnings of this with the Nationalization Act of 1790. This is when Muslim identity became racialized, because it required you to prove that you were white in order to become a citizen, and this is when Muslim identity started to become separated from being white. Then going into the 20th century, with the influx of immigrants into the U.S., there was a case ruling of Dow v. U.S. in 1915, which looked at the whiteness of a citizen, George Dow, in order to determine if naturalization was possible. Out of this case, we always see the impact of religion, of Islam, on determining the whiteness of a person, as Christian Syrians were given the right to nationalization, but Muslim Syrians were not, as Christian Syrians had become ruled white by law. In 1979 came the Iranian hostage crisis and the rule of Khomeini in Iran, and prior to that, the U.S. had had really great, healthy relationships with Iran, with oil and getting natural resources. But after the Iranian Revolution and with Mossadegh coming into power, things shifted a lot, and this has created a national identity of Iran in the minds of Americans. And so from November 4th to 1979 and going to 1981, Khomeini transformed Iran into a Islamic theocracy, instating a regime that posed a threat to the U.S. and its allies. The American media obsessed over these headlines of fear and disaster in Tehran, and this has created a legacy that still exists four decades later. So months after Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was uprooted by Khomeini, Khomeini loyalists stormed the American embassy in Tehran, and this embassy became a symbol of Western transgression, where 52 Americans were held hostage within it as a bounty for devotees. Generally, they just aimed to cease the American presence in Iran as they felt that they were being abused by Americans. And so President Jimmy Carter named these hostage-takers as terrorists, and this planted an idea into the American psyche. There was a huge blur between objective news and fear-mongering during this time period, and with chants like, Death to America, during the revolution before Khomeini took power, it created this huge civilization standoff between the Middle East and America. And so the legacies of this were that through the decade after the hostage crisis, Khomeini was plastered all over American media, he was on the cover of Time, and by painting him as the model stereotype of a terrorist, they found a new villain to replace the Soviets, and he embodies how masculine Muslim terror is now stereotyped. America tends to overgeneralize news stories, and for a foreign and emotional situation that the Iranian hostage crisis was, American media totally glossed over the actual foreign policies going on and the motivations behind the uprising against America. And so they said that Iran was called a breeding ground for radicalism, extremism, Islamism, and anti-Americanism. And as this was the public's first reception of Iran and their first window into the Middle East with these news stories, it filled the public's ignorance and antagonized Iran for the entirety of America. And so the power of media really comes through here, and so it shows that every news source is primed with its own country's ideology. The media coverage of the Iranian hostage crisis was plagued with Western bias, and American journalists, quote, saw Iran through an ideological and cultural haze that distorted the motives of the Iranian people and legitimized motives in the behavior of the Shah. So following this big issue with Iran, in 1996, the Iranian terrorism and effective death penalty act was passed. This led to the deportation of Muslims who were thought to be linked to terrorist activity and was the first step by American legislation and politics towards Islamophobia. And this is kind of around the time period when Islamophobia began. After the hostage crisis, the media became increasingly hateful towards Muslim Americans, and by the 80s, the stereotypical image of terrorists that Ned just described started to be painted on Sikh, Muslim, and Middle Eastern communities. And then by 1997, after the anti-terrorism and death penalty act was passed, the word Islamophobia was created and it started to spread throughout America. After that came the key turning point in American history of 9-11, which brought Islamophobia to the forefront of American politics and attention. After 9-11, 60% of Americans had unfavorable attitude towards Muslims, and Americans began associating Muslims with fear-based words like violence, terrorism, and war. And so now most recently, Trump has imposed a ban that prevented people, called the Muslim travel ban, prevented most people from traveling from the U.S. to Muslim countries, or to the U.S. from Muslim countries. Yeah, this wasn't the only presidential action that had been taken against Muslims in the U.S. In 2011, led by Obama, the counter-violent extremism program began, which increased surveillance in Muslim communities and really started targeting the Muslim Americans. And so now we're going to start looking at some current stats on Islamophobia in the U.S., and we'll start with some demographics of Islamophobia. And so race and Islamophobia. Yeah, race and religion are huge in Islamophobia. White evangelicals have, in a survey conducted by the ISPU, which is the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, white evangelicals had the most Islamophobic answers to the survey. White evangelicals believe that Muslim Americans discriminate against women, are hostile towards the U.S., and are less civilized, and they believe these at a higher rate than any other racial or religious group. And a huge reason for this is proximity to Muslim Americans. In the same study, people at the ISPU found that people who knew Muslim had a 47% favorability rate of Muslims, a 20% unfavorability rate, and 33% had no opinion. But people who didn't know Muslims had a much lower rate of favorability, at just 21%. And so this makes it not shocking that white evangelicals were the most Islamophobic when they were the group least likely to know a Muslim, with only 35% of those surveys admitting to knowing a Muslim. And also adding on to that, when media was covering the Iranian hostage crisis, 70-80% of Americans were unfavorable of Muslims and Islamic culture at that time. And so for percentages of Islamophobia, there are some increases and decreases in favorability. And so right after 9-11, there was a 60% unfavorable opinion, and there was an all-time high of 67% unfavorability in 2015. And a survey found that 49% of Muslims have experienced racial or religious discrimination in the past year. However, only one-third of Americans that report having no prejudice towards Muslims have unfavorable views of Islam, thus disconnecting the ideas of Muslims and Islam, and really cementing the idea of Islamophobia being against the religion. This has impacted many Muslim Americans, including kids, with more than 50% of Muslim kids experiencing bullying in school. A survey in 2011 also found that the greatest deal of prejudice report the lowest educational achievement, with 45% of those having a great deal of prejudice towards Muslims have just a high school diploma. So we see how these educational dynamics with oppression play out in modern America. And then as of 2016, hate crimes against Muslims in America maintained a rate over five times what it was before 9-11, and from 2013 to 2014, hate crimes against Muslims in America rose from 14%. So it wasn't just a problem that started at 9-11 and kind of died out. It's an ever-pressing issue in our country that continues to plague Muslim Americans. Oh, and we also found that the root of Muslim and West tensions when asked about this comes up asking about political interests, maybe it could be religion or culture that could dictate these tensions between the West and Islamic society. Religion and culture outspace politics across all regions surveyed across the world as the root cause of these tensions. So now we're going to look at some examples of Islamophobia and how the history of Islamophobia has impacted Muslim Americans. So the first thing we'll look at is the Oklahoma City bombing in 1955. So after this bombing, which was a horrible event, news outlets like CNN and CBS started to outline the situation as a Muslim threat and began describing the culprits as Muslim without having any idea of the race of the culprits. The culprits in the end turned out to be white, but we can see how after the Iran hostage crisis, media started to turn blame towards Muslims as kind of a scapegoat for issues. And also Wadia al-Fayoumi, who was just six years old, was killed outside his home in Chicago following the recent Israel-Hamas war, which is another example of how Islamophobia has perpetuated in American culture and how Islamophobia is still very real even so far after 9-11. Yeah. And so some of the impacts of Islamophobia have been difficulty in obtaining citizenship for Muslims trying to come to America, and then also a survey found that there was a huge link between stigma towards Muslims and poor outcomes, so not only is it causing personal issues like emotional issues, it's also causing health issues in Muslim Americans that is horrific. So now turning towards activism and how people have started to fight this oppression against Muslim Americans. A big step in this was Malcolm X. Malcolm X, who's a famous civil rights activist, also promoted, also was an Islamic activist and used his Islamic teachings in his fight for African American rights, and this is a huge intersection between two great fights against oppression in America. Malcolm X practiced what was called black Islam, which incorporated ideas of black power and black nationalism into Islam. He was originally part of a group called the Nation of Islam, but he left it due to their racist ideas, which is another example of Islamophobia and how even within these Islamic groups in America, it was racialized and meant to exclude. Also a very notable, a lot more recent activist, her name is Farhana Kara, and she is the founder of the Alliance for Justice and also a founder of Muslim Advocates, which are two groups that work towards eliminating Islamophobia in the modern day and fighting against contemporary issues with fighting for citizenship, and right now she was fighting against Trump's travel ban. And so she's a distinguished civil rights lawyer and leader with nearly 30 years of legal policy and political and management experience, and she's represented a range of clients in discrimination matters, advised public officials, and these all range from issues of civil rights, equity, inclusion, and most importantly, legislation recently. And so she's a child of immigrants who sought freedom and better opportunity, and she's furthermore dedicated her career to promoting our nation's founding ideals of freedom, justice, and equality. And so for more legislation, activism, she served the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee as an expert on constitutional law, and she fought to amend the U.S. Patriot Act, and she made a lot of connections with lawmakers. And most recently, she sat down with two senators, and she shows them two images, and one of the images is one of men clad with assault rifles and military gears, and one of men in white supremacist insignias. She said, quote, I recently had the opportunity to meet with Senate Democrats to talk about the threat of violence from white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups. You might think that these photos were taken from a hate rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, but in fact, they were taken outside a hate rally in Phoenix, Arizona, outside of the largest mosque in that city, which is an instance of modern Islamophobia coming into the public eye once more. And she says, but that's been the reality of American Muslims over the last couple of years. These hate groups have been actively stoking fear, coming into communities, often armed to hilt, and to intimidate and threaten American Muslims and those who stand with the Muslim community. And it really is contrary to the values of who we are as a country. And so you can see that Farhana Khera is really trying hard to bring all these issues to the forefront, and she's very active about it and getting them directly to senators. And another instance of this work was the death of Mohamed Mouhaimin in 2017, which also happened in Phoenix, Arizona. He was 43, and he was arrested and then killed by an officer's knee to his neck, which was on his neck for eight minutes, which is very similar to George Floyd. And she fought hard and worked hard to get justice for him. And she said, today we see a real threat from those who do not believe in an inclusive, pluralistic America, and one in which we are all truly entitled to equal rights under the law. She says, I think the struggle today and going forward is really a fight for the soul of our country and our democracy. In that instance of Mohamed Mouhaimin's death, it was a very Islamophobic incident, as the police officer who killed him mocked him and said, quote, well Allah is not going to help you now, mocking his religion and Islamic views. And then Farhana Khera is a great example of how Muslim Americans have fought against oppression by becoming more politically active since 9-11. Since 9-11, there's been a significant increase in voter turnout, as well as the number of Muslim Americans elected. A survey by the ISPU found that the voter registration in America increased from 60% in 2016 all the way to 78% in 2020. So this fight against oppression is ever-growing, and it's really becoming a strong movement that's very politically active. After 9-11, we are to see the results of this political activity by Muslim Americans, with Keith Ellison becoming the first Muslim elected to Congress in 2006, Andre Carson soon followed him in 2008, then Keith Ellison became the Attorney General of Minnesota, and following him in his Congressional seat was Ilhan Omar, who was a former refugee from Somalia, who worked very distinctly at his job, but set him apart from the rest of Congress, and was a huge step for Muslim Americans and their political success. And adding on to the introduction of Muslim and Islamic politicians into American politics, another instance of Islamic activism coming to play was the No Ban Act, which was fully approved on April 22nd of 2021. It was prompted by Trump's Muslim ban, and this legislation made necessary reforms to the Immigration and National Act to prevent future discriminatory bans similar to Trump's. And so what it does, its real bill name is H.R.1333, and it limits the President's authority to suspend or restrict foreign people from entering the United States, it prohibits religious discrimination. Yeah. We can see how Muslim Americans have taken a very political and legislative view on their own activism. Mustafa Bayoumi, who is an author and a professor at Brooklyn College, said, Muslims in America realize that no one is going to protect them but themselves, and this has really defined how Muslim Americans have fought against the oppression that they've faced, it has defined their own political activism and how, unlike movements in the past, Muslim Americans and this fight against Islamophobia has been really successful at pushing Muslim Americans, people of their own kind, into political roles and using legislation to change what's happening to them very directly and taking action to their own hands. That is our podcast about fighting oppression in America, fighting Islamic oppression in America. It's been a huge issue, and it didn't just start recently with 9-11, but it really started from well over 50 years ago, most prominently with the Iranian hostage crisis and how media sensationalized an image of terrorists and how that further plagued our view of immigrants and Muslims. Yeah, so thank you for listening.