Race, Empire, Islam

What is the difference between Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism? What are the historical roots of anti-Muslim racism? How can we understand anti-Muslim racism, anti-Black racism, and US empire-building together?

Orientalism

• Edward Said,“Orientalism,” in The Edward Said Reader, eds. M. Bayoumi and A. Rubin (Vintage, 2000), 63-75.
• Edward Said, “Islam Through Western Eyes,” The Nation, April 26, 1980.
• Melani McAlister, “Introduction” in Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East since 1945 (University of California Press, 2005).
• Deepa Kumar, “Colonialism and Orientalism,” in Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire (Haymarket Books, 2012).
• Edward Said, On Orientalism (video).

The Long History of Anti-Muslim Racism

• Mahmood Mamdani, “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism.” American Anthropologist 104(3):766-775, 2002.
• Junaid Rana, “The Story of Islamophobia,” Souls 9(2):148-161, 2007.
• Chris Allen, “Towards a New Definition of Islamophobia,” in Islamophobia (Routledge, 2010).
• Edward Curtis, “The Black Muslim Scare of the Twentieth Century: The History of State Islamophobia and Its Post 9/11 Variations,” in Islamophobia in America, ed. Carl Ernst (Palgrave, 2013).
• Malcolm X: Make it Plain (PBS documentary).

Race and Racialization

• Zareena Grewal, “Marriage in Color: Race, Religion and Spouse Selection in Four American Mosques,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 32(2): 323-345, 2009.
• Leti Volpp, “The Citizen and the Terrorist.” UCLA Law Review 49 (2002):1575-1600.
• Muneer Ahmad, “A Rage Shared by Law: Post September 11 Racial Violence as Crimes of Passion.” California Law Review, 92(5): 1259, 2004.
• Salah Hassan, “Arabs, Race, and the Post-September 11 National Security State,” Middle East Report.
• Moustafa Bayoumi, “Racing Religion,” CR: The New Centennial Review 6(2): 267-93, 2006.
• Nadine Naber, “Look, Mohammed the Terrorist Is Coming!’: Cultural Racism, Nation-Based Racism and the Intersectionality of Oppressions after 9/11,” in Race and Arab Americans Before and After 9/11 (Syracuse University Press, 2008).
• “Islamophobia” by Rudy Francisco, Natasha Hooper, and Amen Ra, 2016 National Poetry Slam Finals (video).

Anti-Black Racism and Anti-Muslim Racism in the US

• Amina Wadud, “American by Force, Muslim by Choice.” Political Theology 12(5): 699-705, 2011.
• Sherman A. Jackson, “Islam, Muslims and the wages of racial agnosia in America,” Journal of Islamic Law and Culture 13(1): 1-17, 2011.
• Sylvia Chan-Malik, “Common Cause: On the Black-Immigrant Debate and Constructing the Muslim American.” The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion 2(8): 1-39, 2011.
• Sylvester Johnson, “Black religion, the security state, and the racialization of Islam,” in African American Religions, 1500-2000: Colonialism, Democracy, and Freedom (Cambridge University Press, 2015).
• Sohail Daulatzai. “Introduction: An Empire State of Mind.” In Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom Beyond America (University of Minnesota Press, 2012).
• Su’ad Abdul Khabeer, “The Limits of Muslim Cool,” in Muslim Cool: Race, Religion, and Hip Hop in the United States (New York University Press, 2016).
• Edward E. Curtis IV, Black History, Islam, and the Future of the Humanities Beyond White Supremacy, Humanities Futures.
• “For Black Muslim students, a two pronged fight for solidarity,” PBS News Hour (video).
• Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) force fed under standard Guantánamo Bay procedure (video).

Anti-Muslim Racism as part of the War on Terror and US empire building

• Kambiz GhaneaBassiri,“Conflating Race, Religion, and Progress: Social Change, National Identity, and Islam in the Post-Civil War Era,” In A History of Islam in America: From the New World to the New World Order (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
• Hisham Aidi, “‘Let Us Be Moors’: Islam, Race, and ‘Connected Histories,’” Middle East Report.
• Arun Kundnani, “The Myth of Radicalization,” in The Muslims are Coming: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror (Verso, 2013).
• Nadine Naber, “Diasporas of Empire: Arab Americans and the Reverberations of War,” in At the Limits of Justice: Women of Colour on Terror (University of Toronto Press, 2014).
• Sunera Thobani, “White Wars: Western Feminism and the ‘War on Terror.’” Feminist Theory. 8(2): 169-185, 2007.
• Anny Bakalian and Mehdi Bozorgmehr, “The Post-9/11 Backlash in Comparative and Historical Perspective,” “The Post-9/11 Backlash in Comparative and Historical Perspective,” Backlash 9/11 (University of California Press, 2009).
• Sohail Daulatzai, “Perpetual War and Permanent Unrest: The Battle of Algiers After 9/11”
  • Pair with The Battle of Algiers (film).
• Keith Feldman, “Empire’s Verticality: The Af/Pak Frontier, Visual Culture, and Racialization from Above.” Comparative American Studies 9(4): 325-41, 2011.
• Darryl Li,  “A Jihadism Anti-Primer,” Middle East Report.
• Taxi to the Dark Side, Alex Gibney, 2007 (film).

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