Confronting Islamophobia in the United States: framing civil rights activism among Middle Eastern Americans

Abstract

ABSTRACT In recent years, significant research on Islamophobia has created an important literature about anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim discourses in the United States. However, the term ‘Islamophobia’ has come to refer to racialized bigotry, discrimination, policies and practices directed towards a range of groups, Muslim and otherwise. Love establishes racial formation as a conceptual framework for understanding Islamophobia in the United States, beginning with an examination of the linked and racialized history of American communities with ancestry in North Africa and southwestern Asia, that is, Middle Eastern Americans. He then explores the roots of Islamophobic discourses in the United States in terms of popular culture stereotypes, discriminatory state actions and bigotry, including hate crimes. This leads to a discussion of anti-Islamophobia civil rights activism situated within the historical context of organizational responses to racialized discrimination in the United States. The analysis shows that it remains unclear whether diverse and historically divergent Middle Eastern American communities will remain divided along national-origin, religious, cultural and class lines. Taking historical models of advocacy into account, Love suggests three likely avenues for advocacy organizations that confront Islamophobia in the United States.