Alienating through anger? Diasporic Muslim girls’ coming-of-age in France and Belgium through the white gaze of the SKAM franchise

The academic field of criminology is implicitly colonizing. Criminology’s positivism in particular was founded through Western Europe’s colonizing empires and has, for hundreds of years, been growing and instituting the legacies of white supremacy through which these empires gain strength (Agozino 2003). The nature of criminology is one whereby colonizing knowledges are produced through a process of conquest: conquest of the colonized (now named “criminal,” “antisocial,” or “at risk” by criminologists) and the communities in which we reside, conquest of conceptions of oneself and “the other,” and, finally, conquest of the definitions and expectations we have of justice. Implicit to Western Europe’s colonization and criminology’s research on who is at risk of becoming “criminal,” is the colonial gaze (Fanon 1967), a violent process of voyeurism that requires captivity enabling colonial subjects accessible for dissection (literally and figuratively) in search of Western Europe’s justification for the bloodshed of its conquests.

Iesha1 is a senior at City High School (CHS). She is petite, insightful, and full of laughter. While responding to the question, How would you describe this school? she looked at me thoughtfully and replied: To be honest, at first I hated this school. I smiled while nodding my head. I appreciated her candor. I knew that Iesha faced a unique set of challenges during her tenure at CHS as Black girls are overrepresented in discipline referrals and graduate at rates below their peers at CHS and in high schools throughout the nation (Crenshaw, Ocen, & Nanda, 2015; Morris, 2015; U. S. Department of Education, 2016; White House Council on Women and Girls, 2014). Not surprisingly, Black girls are stymied by many of the race-based policies and practices that impede the success of their male counterparts. Despite this fact, Black boys remain at the center of research efforts and national initiatives aimed to improve their educational outcomes (see Brooms, 2016; Noguera, 2014; Toldson & Lewis, 2012; Wright, 2011).It is important to note that my concern for young people, Black girls in particular, is palpable. I am a Black woman, mother of a Black girl, and an activist scholar. My research is centered on effective school leadership. I work with school leadership teams to strengthen school-community relationships in ways that support student success. Moreover, based on my own experiences, I am critical of how some school leaders view Black girls. They see them through a deficit lens- ignoring many of the positive attributes that serve to sustain them. Therefore, I was excited when I received parental consent forms from six Black girls at CHS to participate in my perception study. I wanted to honor the voices that are oftentimes silenced in schools and to employ standpoints that are seldom considered in education research.Accordingly, this study answers the following research question: What are the perceptions and experiences of Black Girls who attend City High School? Furthermore, the purpose of the study was to illuminate the realities of Black girls who attend CHS and to apply a Black Feminist Theory analysis (Collins, 2000) to the study's empirical findings. The results of this study were to inform school leaders of the distinct challenges that impact the experiences of Black girls. The ultimate aim of this study was to improve the schooling experiences of Black girls at CHS and in schools throughout the nation.THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKGloria Steinem, the former editor of Ms. Magazine (see www.msmagazine.com) proclaimed Black women to be the originators of the feminist movement (Tisdale, 2015). Ironically, the function of feminism was found to be obtuse for most Black women as it privileges Whiteness and fails to acknowledge the intersection of gender and race (Guy-Sheftall, 1986). In the groundbreaking text, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, Collins (2000) recognized this rift and argued that Black women occupy a unique standpoint based on our own oppression.Black Feminist Theory is used to undergird this study because it centers Black women as creators of knowledge while providing a framework to contextualize and understand our nuanced realities. Collins (2000) delineated four tenets of Black Feminist Theory: (a) self-definition, (b) the lived experience, (c) the use of dialogue, and (d) personal accountability. Self-definition acknowledges the self (the Black woman) as a creator of Black womanhood and privileges the individual and collective Black woman's distinct reality. In the lived experience the realities and claims of the knower (Black women) is considered truth and is therefore not subject to 'White gaze. ' Meaning, our subjective reality is factual and should not be interrogated. The use of dialogue acknowledges the active participation of both the speaker and the listener in knowledge claims. Last, Black Feminist Theory places personal accountability (agency) on the knower. …

This study explores the lived experiences on campus of five female undergraduate students of colour. Drawing on a critical race theory perspective and inspired by CRiT walking, walking interviews were conducted to give voice to the students’ experiences of marginalisation, both metaphorical and physical. The findings reveal how whiteness impacts on participants’ negotiation of university spaces; how the ‘white gaze’ influences their geographies; and how their experiences lead them to occupy counter-spaces within the university. Further, we found that participants’ aspirations of postgraduate education were tainted by these negative experiences at the undergraduate level, leading them to reject altogether or begrudgingly continue their education. The study proposes theoretically framed walking interviews as a productive methodology in future critical studies of race in education and highlights the urgent need to address the marginalisation of female students of colour on campus as one means of addressing postgraduate recruitment imbalances.

Throughout his writings, what Frantz Fanon calls the colonized subject’s “reality” is really his lived experience. That experience, especially in the latter chapters of Black Skin, White Masks, alternates between outright invisibility and the “crushing objecthood” of being seen only as a black body. This is the objecthood that Fanon experiences as fixing him in the white gaze, and preempting him as an individual subject. Thus Fanon sees in the Lordship and Bondage (or master and slave) relation of G. W. F. Hegel’s Phenomenology the life-endangering, yet life-affirming risk that the slave must take in order to transcend the reality that the other has imposed on him—the reality of being seen and known by the master strictly as an object. What the slave wants in instigating conflict with the master is thus to reoccupy a place in the other’s reality—to reassert one’s place within the reality of reciprocal, mutual recognition between subjects. This is the fundamental reality of which Fanon writes in the relentless self-analysis that is Black Skin, White Masks, which he expands in The Wretched of the Earth to encompass the Algerian Revolution and, by extension, the whole of the colonized world.

Placing blackness within a philosophical and phenological framework. Understanding lived experience as a site of examination and transcendence. Liberating black lived experiences from the white gaze through poetry in conversation with other Black scholars and writers. Part of a larger collection of poems aiming to understand lived experience and blackness as specific keys to move beyond post-traumatic stress disorder and its interactions with racism and intergenerational trauma.

<p>This dissertation critiques the construction of the American Muslim female superhero where Muslim identity is treated as an intersectional identity. It incorporates critical race theory, postcolonial feminism, affect theory, audience studies, postfeminism, and feminist comic studies. While American Muslim superheroes have existed for many decades, their representation flourished during the War on Terror. I first position the Muslim female superhero in the current social and geopolitical context in the West by discussing the underpinnings of the imperialist project in her construction. In the process, I discuss the ways she emphasizes Western exceptionalism and white male saviorism; and its implications for Muslim masculinities by depicting them as savage oppressors of women in comics written by White, non-Muslim men. I examine the attempts of Muslim writers to rehabilitate these images in the <em>Ms. Marvel</em> comic series, ending with a discussion for the potential of both these gendered representations in my Conclusion.</p> <p>The field of Muslim audience studies has been overlooked in scholarship despite the increase in negative representations of Muslims in Western media. This study contributes to that understudied area with an audience study examining young adult female Muslim perspectives of three Muslim superheroines – Sooraya Qadir (Dust), Monet St. Croix (M), and Kamala Khan (Ms.Marvel). If we analyze the conditions of possibility that led to an influx of American Muslim superheroes during the War on Terror, it becomes clear that the Muslim superheroine has two functions. For dominant audiences, she alleviates white guilt when we consider the increase in state violence committed against Muslims during this war. But for Muslim audiences who are frustrated with Orientalist depictions of them, she provides relief from these depictions, making their reactions an affective phenomenon. Because participants viewed their religious identity in conjunction with their racial, sexual, gendered, and cultural identity, I provide a critique of Arab Muslim femininity through emphasizing Black, South Asian, and LGBTQ Muslim identity. Finally, I discuss gendered Muslim identity in superhero comics through analyses of Islamic wear as costumes, and class representations of Muslim men.</p>

<p>This dissertation critiques the construction of the American Muslim female superhero where Muslim identity is treated as an intersectional identity. It incorporates critical race theory, postcolonial feminism, affect theory, audience studies, postfeminism, and feminist comic studies. While American Muslim superheroes have existed for many decades, their representation flourished during the War on Terror. I first position the Muslim female superhero in the current social and geopolitical context in the West by discussing the underpinnings of the imperialist project in her construction. In the process, I discuss the ways she emphasizes Western exceptionalism and white male saviorism; and its implications for Muslim masculinities by depicting them as savage oppressors of women in comics written by White, non-Muslim men. I examine the attempts of Muslim writers to rehabilitate these images in the <em>Ms. Marvel</em> comic series, ending with a discussion for the potential of both these gendered representations in my Conclusion.</p> <p>The field of Muslim audience studies has been overlooked in scholarship despite the increase in negative representations of Muslims in Western media. This study contributes to that understudied area with an audience study examining young adult female Muslim perspectives of three Muslim superheroines – Sooraya Qadir (Dust), Monet St. Croix (M), and Kamala Khan (Ms.Marvel). If we analyze the conditions of possibility that led to an influx of American Muslim superheroes during the War on Terror, it becomes clear that the Muslim superheroine has two functions. For dominant audiences, she alleviates white guilt when we consider the increase in state violence committed against Muslims during this war. But for Muslim audiences who are frustrated with Orientalist depictions of them, she provides relief from these depictions, making their reactions an affective phenomenon. Because participants viewed their religious identity in conjunction with their racial, sexual, gendered, and cultural identity, I provide a critique of Arab Muslim femininity through emphasizing Black, South Asian, and LGBTQ Muslim identity. Finally, I discuss gendered Muslim identity in superhero comics through analyses of Islamic wear as costumes, and class representations of Muslim men.</p>

There has been a proliferation of research accounting for Black police–citizen experiences and subsequent uprisings. Fewer works, however, have solely attended to the ways in which the Eurocentric framing of this nation interactively and inconspicuously drives surveillance, harassment, and victimization as conjoined social control for Black people. Through a Black feminist lens, we briefly examine the “white gaze” as an ever-present measurement and form of social control, detrimental to Black people. This often-clandestine compilation of expectations and experiences has been less explored as an all-encompassing form of policing. The kind that reifies whiteness and the oppression of Black people, but then eludes contemporary discourse and possibilities for reforming police. This chapter attends to the everyday debilitating effects of constantly being assessed and scrutinized against the backdrop of whiteness. More importantly, this chapter advances Black imagined freedom as liberation praxis through micro and macro levels of analyses.

Introduction Darkness is often characterised as something that warrants heightened caution and scrutiny – signifying increased danger and risk. Within settler-colonial settings such as Australia, cautionary and negative connotations of darkness are projected upon Black people and their bodies, forming part of continuing colonial regimes of power (Moreton-Robinson). Negative stereotypes of “dark” continues to racialise all Indigenous peoples. In Australia, Indigenous peoples are both Indigenous and Black regardless of skin colour, and this plays out in a range of ways, some of which will be highlighted within this article. This article demonstrates that for Indigenous peoples, associations of fear and danger are built into the structural mechanisms that shape and maintain colonial understandings of Indigenous peoples and their bodies. It is this embodied form of darkness, and its negative connotations, and responses that we explore further. Figure 1: Megan Cope’s ‘I’m not afraid of the Dark’ t-shirt (Fredericks and Heemsbergen 2021) Responding to the anxieties and fears of settlers that often surround Indigenous peoples, Quandamooka artist and member of the art collective ProppaNow, Megan Cope, has produced a range of t-shirts, one of which declares “I’m not afraid of the Dark” (fig. 1). The wording ‘reflects White Australia’s fear of blackness’ (Dark + Dangerous). Exploring race relations through the theme of “darkness”, we begin by discussing how negative connotations of darkness are represented through everyday lexicons and how efforts to shift prejudicial and racist language are often met with defensiveness and resistance. We then consider how fears towards the dark translate into everyday practices, reinforced by media representations. The article considers how stereotype, conjecture, and prejudice is inflicted upon Indigenous people and reflects white settler fears and anxieties, rooting colonialism in everyday language, action, and norms. The Language of Fear Indigenous people and others with dark skin tones are often presented as having a proclivity towards threatening, aggressive, deceitful, and negative behaviours. This works to inform how Indigenous peoples are “known” and responded to by hegemonic (predominantly white) populations. Negative connotations of Indigenous people are a means of reinforcing and legitimising the falsity that European knowledge systems, norms, and social structures are superior whilst denying the contextual colonial circumstances that have led to white dominance. In Australia, such denial corresponds to the refusal to engage with the unceded sovereignty of Aboriginal peoples or acknowledge Indigenous resistance. Language is integral to the ways in which dominant populations come to “know” and present the so-called “Other”. Such language is reflected in digital media, which both produce and maintain white anxieties towards race and ethnicity. When part of mainstream vernacular, racialised language – and the value judgments associated with it – often remains in what Moreton-Robinson describes as “invisible regimes of power” (75). Everyday social structures, actions, and habits of thought veil oppressive and discriminatory attitudes that exist under the guise of “normality”. Colonisation and the dominance of Eurocentric ways of knowing, being, and doing has fixated itself on creating a normality that associates Indigeneity and darkness with negative and threatening connotations. In doing so, it reinforces power balances that presents an image of white superiority built on the invalidation of Indigeneity and Blackness. White fears and anxieties towards race made explicit through social and digital media are also manifest via subtle but equally pervasive everyday action (Carlson and Frazer; Matamoros-Fernández). Confronting and negotiating such fears becomes a daily reality for many Indigenous people. During the height of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, which extended to Australia and were linked to deaths in custody and police violence, African American poet Saul Williams reminded his followers of the power of language in constructing racialised fears (saulwilliams). In an Instagram post, Williams draws back the veil of an uncontested normality to ask that we take personal responsibility over the words we use. He writes: here’s a tip: Take the words DARK or BLACK in connection to bad, evil, ominous or scary events out of your vocabulary. We learn the stock market crashed on Black Monday, we read headlines that purport “Dark Days Ahead”. There’s “dark” or “black” humour which implies an undertone of evil, and then there are people like me who grow up with dark skin having to make sense of the English/American lexicon and its history of “fair complexions” – where “fair” can mean “light; blond.” OR “in accordance with rules or standards; legitimate.” We may not be fully responsible for the duplicitous evolution of language and subtle morphing of inherited beliefs into description yet we are in full command of the words we choose even as they reveal the questions we’ve left unasked. Like the work of Moreton-Robinson and other scholars, Williams implores his followers to take a reflexive position to consider the questions often left unasked. In doing so, he calls for the transcendence of anonymity and engagement with the realities of colonisation – no matter how ugly, confronting, and complicit one may be in its continuation. In the Australian context this means confronting how terms such as “dark”, “darkie”, or “darky” were historically used as derogatory and offensive slurs for Aboriginal peoples. Such language continues to be used today and can be found in the comment sections of social media, online news platforms, and other online forums (Carlson “Love and Hate”). Taking the move to execute personal accountability can be difficult. It can destabilise and reframe the ways in which we understand and interact with the world (Rose 22). For some, however, exposing racism and seemingly mundane aspects of society is taken as a personal attack which is often met with reactionary responses where one remains closed to new insights (Whittaker). This feeds into fears and anxieties pertaining to the perceived loss of power. These fears and anxieties continue to surface through conversations and calls for action on issues such as changing the date of Australia Day, the racialised reporting of news (McQuire), removing of plaques and statues known to be racist, and requests to change placenames and the names of products. For example, in 2020, Australian cheese producer Saputo Dairy Australia changed the name of it is popular brand “Coon” to “Cheer Tasty”. The decision followed a lengthy campaign led by Dr Stephen Hagan who called for the rebranding based on the Coon brand having racist connotations (ABC). The term has its racist origins in the United States and has long been used as a slur against people with dark skin, liking them to racoons and their tendency to steal and deceive. The term “Coon” is used in Australia by settlers as a racist term for referring to Aboriginal peoples. Claims that the name change is example of political correctness gone astray fail to acknowledge and empathise with the lived experience of being treated as if one is dirty, lazy, deceitful, or untrustworthy. Other brand names have also historically utilised racist wording along with imagery in their advertising (Conor). Pear’s soap for example is well-known for its historical use of racist words and imagery to legitimise white rule over Indigenous colonies, including in Australia (Jackson). Like most racial epithets, the power of language lies in how the words reflect and translate into actions that dehumanise others. The words we use matter. The everyday “ordinary” world, including online, is deeply politicised (Carlson and Frazer “They Got Filters”) and comes to reflect attitudes and power imbalances that encourage white people to internalise the falsity that they are superior and should have control over Black people (Conor). Decisions to make social change, such as that made by Saputo Dairy Australia, can manifest into further white anxieties via their ability to force the confrontation of the circumstances that continue to contribute to one’s own prosperity. In other words, to unveil the realities of colonialism and ask the questions that are too often left in the dark. Lived Experiences of Darkness Colonial anxieties and fears are driven by the fact that Black populations in many areas of the world are often characterised as criminals, perpetrators, threats, or nuisances, but are rarely seen as victims. In Australia, the repeated lack of police response and receptivity to concerns of Indigenous peoples expressed during the Black Lives Matter campaign saw tens of thousands of people take to the streets to protest. Protestors at the same time called for the end of police brutality towards Indigenous peoples and for an end to Indigenous deaths in custody. The protests were backed by a heavy online presence that sought to mobilise people in hope of lifting the veil that shrouds issues relating to systemic racism. There have been over 450 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to die in custody since the end of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991 (The Guardian). The tragedy of the Indigenous experience gains little attention internationally. The negative implications of being the object of white fear and anxiety are felt by Indigenous and other Black communities daily. The “safety signals” (Daniella Emanuel) adopted by white peoples in response to often irrational perceptions of threat signify how Indigenous and other Black peoples and communities are seen and valued by the hegemony. Memes played out in social media depicting “Karens” – a term that corresponds to caricaturised white women (but equally applicable to men) who exhibit behaviour

This chapter examines the ways that the representations of Imran's and Hamza's Latino Muslim experiences and subjectivity are amplifying dominant notions of male Latinidad through Latino/Puerto Rican Muslim male subjectivity. As documentaries, these productions offer representations that complicate sensationalist mainstream discourses of Latino Muslim identity found in post-9/11 coverage of Latino Muslim conversion. The chapter addresses the similarities and differences in how Hamza and Imran express their Puerto Rican subjectivity as well as their sense of cultural maintenance in their everyday lives as US-born children in their surrounding communities. It argues that the depiction/centering of Imran's and Hamza's subjectivity as Muslim subjects overall challenges and expands discourses and representations of Muslims and Latinos/xs. Specifically, the chapter compares and contrasts how these film narratives package each protagonist's life experiences with those of their mothers as bearers of cultural identity, and their everyday dealings with authenticity and interculturality that enlighten their audiences about how they navigate their Latino/Puerto Rican and Muslim identities.

This study examines the increasing Muslim presence in Western Europe, driven by migration, fertility rates, and religious conversion according to recent demographic research. Triggering events such as the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the 7/7 London bombings in 2005, marked as milestones, worsened by the global media and propaganda, have significantly fueled Islamophobia across the region. Countries in Western Europe, like Spain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, are selected focus areas to reflect social change and overlapping responses to the shifts. This study investigates the connection between rising anti-immigrant sentiment toward Muslims and the media’s role in shaping Islamophobia by negatively depicting Islam as a religion of war or terror. By analyzing the European Islamophobia Reports from 2015 to 2023, this study examines how Muslims are portrayed both as immigrants and through their symbolic societal presence. The study critically analyzes anti-Islam propaganda and the life experiences of Muslim communities by implementing qualitative methods through a literature review. The findings of this study reveal a paradox between Europe’s advocacy for diversity and the realities shaped by political and global dynamics, which hinder efforts toward inclusion. These insights could inform media policies to promote more balanced representations of Muslims and guide societal initiatives aimed at reducing prejudice and fostering greater inclusivity in Western Europe.

To date, limited attention has been paid to the relationship of young female Muslims in Western Europe and sport. However as the present review will reveal, this relationship can be described as problematic and therefore needs specific attention. On the one hand, research has indicated that most of these girls have a positive attitude towards sport. While on the other hand, their actual level of sport participation is very low in comparison to other youngsters. It is often stated that this discrepancy is caused by the fact that sport participation is highly restricted by Islamic living rules especially for females. And yet a number of authors have argued that Islam does not obstruct females' sport participation. The present paper attempts to provide more insight in a number of characteristics of the relationship between Islam and the sport participation of Muslim girls who live in Western Europe. Finally, some recommendations for a sport promotion policy and future research directions are formulated.

Streaming television has seemingly offered an alternative to legacy television texts that have abstracted religion and cultural identity to achieve mass appeal and appease advertisers. In theory, agnostic platforms offer the opportunity to distribute niche content that does not stereotype marginalized groups. Indeed, series like Hulu’s Ramy (2019–) include nuanced portrayals of second-generation lived experiences and depart from past problematic representations of Arab Muslims. However, the branding and industry rhetoric that circle the series continue long-standing discursive practices that distance media corporations from lived religion and cultural specificity. This case study highlights that the democratizing thrust of the Internet has hardly destabilized problematic legacy industry practices and illustrates how paratextual representations and corporate discourses are increasingly contradictory in a complex, conglomerated media environment.

This is the introductory chapter of the book Muslims in British Local Government: Representing Minority Interests in Hackney, Newham, and Tower Hamlets, which evaluates the specific process of their interaction through case-study analyses of the London Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Newham, and Hackney, while also investigating the role of representational styles of Muslim councillors on their political effectiveness. Although Muslims in the West is a flourishing research area, there are few rigorous studies on the political representation of Muslims in Western Europe. Most studies focus on ethnicity rather than the sociopolitical Muslim identity. The book investigates the dynamics of effective Muslim political representation in a liberal democracy. It defines effective political representation as high levels of congruence between policy preferences of voters and elected officials. The research is situated within the broader debates in the political representation literature. Political representation is a highly contested concept in the social sciences.Keywords: Muslim councillors; political representation literature; sociopolitical Muslim identity; Western Europe

The spirit and intent of this reflection is to open up the ways in which the “single storying” of Islam and Muslims limits more ethical forms of relationality. This reflective piece seeks to make evident the ways in which limited representations of particular faith traditions produces feelings of isolation, exclusion and a sense of disconnect from others. Drawing upon métissage principles, this reflection will elucidate lived experiences on their own terms. Métissage as a research sensibility and political praxis can validate ways of knowing and being that are often denied.