9/11-era ignorance of Islam is infecting the age of Isis. We should know better

[hrmjustin]

Simran Jeet Singh

In the last two months, three major hate crimes have hit New York City, the most ethnically diverse place in the United States. Last week, a man chased a Muslim American woman into oncoming traffic in Brooklyn while threatening to behead her. Earlier this month, a group of teenagers physically assaulted a Sikh American while hurling racial slurs like “terrorist” and “Osama”. In late July, a man shouted similar epithets at Sandeep Singh before running him over with his truck and dragging him nearly 30 feet.

In the nearly 13 years since 9/11, and now in the three months since the Islamic State (Isis) broadcast its brand of fear to the west, a new de facto racial category has crystalized: “the apparent Muslim”. The “apparent Muslim” has physical features supposedly similar to those associated with terrorism – brown skin, facial hair, turbans – but those who use the presumptive discrimination end up conflating racial and religious features. Anyone who makes assumptions about “the apparent Muslim” – and that is a lot of people, whether consciously or not – is effectively subsuming a number of communities, including Arabs and Sikhs who do not identify with Islam.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/ignorance-islam-isis-hate-crimes