One Nation Under Attack: Color-Blind Racism, Racialization, and White Victimhood in a Case of Organized Islamophobia

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the wake of 9/11 and the Trump campaign in 2016, organized Islamophobia has been on the rise in the U.S. In this article, I ask: How do those leading and participating in anti-Muslim mobilizations justify this discriminatory activism? To answer this question, I conducted a frame analysis of an anti-Muslim mobilization in Aberdeen, SD from 2016–2017. I analyzed the content of public meetings during this period (n = 8), the public Facebook posts of a local hate group, the Americans First, Task Force (n = 454), and individual Facebook user comments (n = 1370). I find that color-blind racist frames, place-based racial storytelling , white victimhood, and racialization are the central justifications deployed in this mobilization’s frames.