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Posted 2015-03-09, 11:10 AM
in reply to Skurai's post starting "Well, the problem with this, is that..."
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Well, the problem with this, is that usually the phobics don't know. They're almost always unwilling to even look up the basics outside their own social circles (i.e. "What's a Muslim?" he asks his friend, pastor of Westboro Baptist Church). You can expect Rednecks to shoot of their guns and go "9/11! 9/11!" if you mention a Muslim, and I'm sure most of them go "Jews!? Didn't they kill Jesus!!!!???"
These people literally do not know Islam is a religion. They do not know Arabic is a race. They do not know Jew is a religion. They honestly don't know most of the Bible they're 21-gun-saluting. Because they can't read.
Is Islamaphobia racist? It depends on the brainpower the perpetrator has. If it's a person who might actually be smart, then no, it's just Islamaphobia. But if they're a redneck, just assume they hate anyone who "did 9/11!!"
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This!
I don't think Islamophobia is racist in principle, but it is absolutely racist in practice. There was a video on Reddit just a few days ago of a Sikh middle-schooler being slurred as a terrorist. Why, if he's not Islamic? Because of his ethnicity. Because of his race. To the perpetrator's mind, he shares physical similarities to "Islamists" (whatever that means) and jihadists, and that is enough to inculpate him. If that's not racism, I don't know what is. And that phenomenon transcends middle-school bullying. It seems pretty pervasive. So is Islamophobia racist? In practice, absolutely.
That said, race is a very hard thing to define. It has been scientifically undefinable for the last 80-90 years. Given that its definition is cultural, it seems at least Eurocentric to deny that label to those that identify as a race because it's done in a way that you're unfamiliar with.
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