lebanesepoppyseed replied to your post: No you are wrong, one can be racist toward a religion.
You cannot be racist towards a religion, but given how Islam has been racialized and discriminated and rallied against based on said racialization, you can’t ignore that context when criticizing the religion. #IslamophobiaYa’llYeah, but restricting the term Muslim or Islam to just one race is, in my views, a bit problematic. You have Arabs, people of African descent, Asians, White people (like Brother Ali) who are Muslims so to link the term to one race is just dildos IMO.
Evidence that the word choice section of my brain is shutting down after liberal consumption of nicotine, alcohol, and sleep deprivation.You misunderstand. I know that Muslims are not just one race and agree that it is oversimplifying and problematic to view them as such, but regardless of that they have all been racialized as the trope of the dark Middle Eastern, Arabic-speaking extremis so as to fit white supremacy’s needs regardless. Kind of how like not all poor people are black and vice versa, yet when a lot of people are saying bigoted shit about “hoodrats” and “welfare queens” and whatnot, you know they’re referring to black folk specifically and the language is racialized. There are Muslims of every race, many more so than actual Middle Eastern Muslims, but that isn’t how the religion is viewed. That needs to be taken into account.
Unless depressingfacts is a Muslim, I invite them to shut up. No matter how fabulous they may be at countering oppression in other areas, they do not get to define how Islamobigotry works or deny that racism is a huge part of it and how Muslims are marginalized. And the fact of this is that white Muslims, while still marginalized as Muslims, are ridiculously privileged compared to non-white Muslims - both in Muslim communities and in the wider society. Being Muslim in the West contributes greatly to the racism I deal with every single day, and yes, as a Native person I can tell you: It is exactly the same in terms of its method and its effects.
I’m not denying Islamophobia being closely related to racism, nor am I ignoring how whiteness permeates religion also.
My point is, within the context of the question, being racist toward a religion, not the caricature or a trope of the religion, is not possible due to the fact that religions in general span many races, including white people. My point is basically that religion is not a race.
I think my conveyance of my point was flawed. Basically, I was trying to restrict the topic away from Islamophobia and more into answering the question of as to can you be racist toward a religion, as Islamophobia works with a straw man/stereotype/caricature of Muslims and that’s a whole other discussion entirely.
Islamic religion has been characterized as people of arab decent regardless, also (unless i have missed something) i think someone mixed up the words prejudice and racism…
