An Unlikely Savior
Islam has more or less the same prescriptions and proscriptions as Christianity and even share some of the same mythoi. But unlike Christianity, the vast majority of its adherents are people of color and that has been the case pretty much since its inception (maybe there was a flip in demographics in the 8th century). Because of this, and the way POC are treated in Christian-European (to be called “western” going forward) nations, Islam became popular amongst Black people in America, especially during the Civil Rights era (The Nation of Islam, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar etc.).
As I said earlier, Christianity systematically has treated POC like shit. Whether it was the doctrine of evangelism being used to justify colonization or the curse of Ham’s offspring to justify Black slavery and Manifest Destiny, POC have always been viewed as outsiders in western cultures. And also as I said, Islam is no better or worse as far as its doctrine or adherents than Christianity. The difference that makes a difference is race and ethnicity. Ironically, Islam is treated like Jesus Christ himself is in evangelical doctrine: western chauvinists put all of their sins onto Islam and then crucify it and its adherents in some kind of re-enactment of Calvary.
And therein lies the rub. There are a lot of problems in the Islamic world that, right now, absent of any historical context, along with its racial makeup, make it an easy target of special scrutiny and criticism. Whether it’s FGM, slavery, the persecution, and execution of the LGBT community, the compulsory head coverings for women in Iran and other places, these grate on our western ideas of human rights. But they’re also issues that make a lot of contact with western societies, both in their base assumptions and in practice at times.
These similarities between western and Islamic culture, in concert with the inverse racial and ethnic demographics, allows people to use Islam like Christ and absolve themselves of sin. Attempts to talk about rape culture or the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow are responded to with Islam flavored whataboutisms. Hell, I made a Facebook post comparing the Ku Klux Klan to ISIS and was condescended to about their legacy of hate and murder by members of The Satanic Temple, saying that they’re a joke, now. TST members would later go on to talk about how members of the KKK were shadowing them with rifles at their rally in Arkansas.
Whatever.
In my experience, the racial component in Islamophobia either gets ignored or the person I’m talking to about it can’t make the connection. How can criticizing a religion be racist? Well, I’m not the most articulate or well versed on this matter but these are my thoughts.
