Hot take. The way people talk about Islamophobia is racist.

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[–]quickbeam 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

I see attacks on Islam as attacks on brown people partly because Islamophobia often stems from racism and often results in racist attacks on people who aren't even Muslim - such as the attack on the Sikh temple in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, or random attacks after 9/11 on people as unrelated to Islam as Buddhist monks. Of course not all Muslims are brown, but a lot of Islamophobes don't even know that. The two often go hand in hand. Also, in my country Christianity is still the dominant religion; we ban Muslims from the country currently, not Christians. So it's kind of absurd to talk about "Christianophobia" when Christians are in power and not discriminated against by powerful institutions.

[–]RedditHatesLesbians[S] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Agreed that Christianophobia is absurd in any area where Christianity is a majority, and this is an interesting take. I suppose this irks me is because I have a best friend who's Bosnian and Muslim and she's been accused of being Islamophobic by a SJW before herself because she's a radfem and generally outspoken and gender critical. I suppose my main pet peeve is when Islamophobia becomes one of those words SJWs use to throw at you to silence your argument, instead of having a meaningful and nuanced discussion.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah and consider what Bosnians went through for being Muslims. People need to learn history.

[–]quickbeam 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Definitely agree that some people use it as a silencing technique and often they don't even really understand much about Islam in the first place or that Muslims can belong to any race or be from many different countries. It also continues to be nuts to me the amount of erasure of feminist concerns in recent years in social justice communities. It's not like we solved sexism.

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

it's kind of absurd to talk about "Christianophobia" when Christians are in power and not discriminated against by powerful institutions.

Unfortunately, the history of the Middle East and North Africa, and what's going on there now - as well as the history of much of Europe - doesn't bear out these claims.

Yes, people who practice Christianity or vestiges of Christian tradition predominate and are in power in a vast swathe of the world - such as Europe due largely to the Roman Empire and in the Americas due to colonization by Spain, Portugal, France and Great Britain.

But that doesn't mean Christians "are in power" and long have been everywhere on earth. Nor does it mean that Christians nowadays are not, nor in the past have never been, "discriminated against by powerful institutions."

Since its earliest days, all sorts of other religious and political groups have persecuted Christians in the Middle East and other parts of the world. If being arrested, tortured and nailed to a cross - and thrown to lions in the Coliseum in Rome for entertainment - by the leaders and police forces of the Roman Empire doesn't count as being "discriminated against against by powerful institutions," then how would you describe it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians

If you really think that it's true now and in the past that

Christians are in power and not discriminated against by powerful institutions

I suggest you look into the history of the Barbary pirates, the genocide of the (Christian) Armenians a century ago by the (Muslim) Ottoman Turks, the Darmour massacre in Lebanon in 1976, and what's happening to the Christian population of Nigeria at this very moment.

I also suggest looking at the changing demographics of the Middle East - the part of the world where Christianity originated - with curiosity about why these changes have occurred. Used to be, the majority of the population in the ME was Christian, but nowadays only tiny minorities of Christians remain there - and their numbers are fast dwindling even further. I think you'll find that a lot of relentless persecution and discrimination by powerful forces and institutions have indeed been involved in bringing about these changes.

Just to be clear: I am not arguing for Christianity or the/a hegemony of Christians. Simply pointing out that Christians have not always been the boss of the whole world as you make them out to be, and they indeed have suffered discrimination and persecution just like Muslims have.

I'm also trying to point out that it's a myth to portray Muslims as the most oppressed, maligned and discriminated against religion on earth, and to suggest that the history of Islam is that of never-ending victimization and "Islamophobia." Muslims have also been oppressors, invaders, conquerers, colonizers, imperialists, slavers, slave traders who've committed as many crimes and injustices against others as have been committed against them. Including genocides.

The historical record makes it clear that no one race or religion is superior to others, and no group can claim to be entirely innocent of all wrongdoing. People of all races and creeds have been victimized and put upon by others, and all have done terrible things to others too.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/02/persecution-driving-christians-out-of-middle-east-report

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-christian-tragedy-in-the-middle-east-did-not-begin-with-isis-10157239.html

https://nypost.com/2019/11/15/a-mass-christian-exodus-from-the-middle-east-would-be-a-catastrophe/

[–]quickbeam 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I didn't say Christians have never been discriminated against in the entire historical record or might not be discriminated against in one country or by specific individuals. But it seems kind of irrelevant to bring up things that happened ages ago to inform a discussion about how Christians and Muslims are situated in the West today. I also didn't say that Muslims were "the most oppressed group of people", but speaking as a United States citizen, Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim due to their skin tone/religious garb are often the victims of hate crimes and that discrimination is supported by the current administration in banning people from Muslim countries when no credible threat is present. I do think they are the religious group currently most persecuted in the United States today, followed perhaps by Jewish people who have also been victims of hate group violence. Christians, if they are attacked at all, are attacked for other reasons such as race.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yes, I tried to provide some historical context, but I didn't just mention "things that happened ages ago." I pointed to specific examples of anti-Christian persecution, often violent and even murderous persecution, going on right this moment in the Middle East as well as in Nigeria, where many sources say a genocide of Christians is underway. And I provided links to multiple news reports from 2019 and 2020 to back up my claims.

Even as you say you're alleging that Muslims are "the most oppressed," in the next breath you say

I do think they are the religious group currently most persecuted in the United States today

I find your assumption that everyone views these matters from the perspective of someone inside USA - and that a USA-centric perspective is the worldwide norm, the only perspective that matters, and the lens through everyone on this particular SM site is viewing the topic of animus towards Islam and other religions - to be narrow and quite USA-supremacist. Makes me wonder how much travel outside the US you've done, and how familiar you are with other cultures.

I'd love to see the sources you have for your contention that practicing Muslims in the US are subject to frequent "hate crimes" - along with your definition of exactly what you mean by the term "hate crimes" - and your claim that collectively Muslims

are the religious group currently most persecuted in the United States today

Please be specific about which groups are causing this persecution and committing all these "hate crimes." Because to thwart this stuff, we need to focus on the perps and their motivations, not just on the victims.

Also, you are overlooking all the death threats and hate that ex-Muslims of various ethnicities, skin colors and countries of origin routinely get in the US from practicing Muslims with the exact same skin colors and ethnicities. As well all the internecine conflicts that occur every day in the US amongst groups of people who share similar or same ethnic heritage, racial characteristics and countries/place of origin but who adhere to very different religions and political views and ideologies. To the eyes of outsiders, these people might superficially look similar, but when the "content of their character" and their individual views are taken into account, they are actually very different.

For example, in recent years many of the most vociferous opponents to a new mosques in places like Michigan - and to Muslim immigration to the US more generally - have come from immigrant communities of other minority faiths from the Middle East who came to the US after persecution by Muslims and for the express purpose of escaping it. Such as Yazidis, B'ahi, and Coptic and Chaldean Christians. Along with ex-Muslims from places like Somalia, Turkey, Sudan, Pakistan and Egypt. Ethnically and racially these people appear quite similar, especially to outsiders. But speak to them, and you'll find a diversity of views and beliefs.

[–]quickbeam 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Given that the OP is posting in English and seems to be coming from a Western perspective, I decided to respond from a Western perspective and specified that I was doing so in order to clarify my viewpoint. The world is so large and so full of variables that it would be impossible to have a sensible discussion on Islamophobia if we didn't clarify our perspectives/countries and the contexts we are living in because institutional power/cultural norms matter when discussing discrimination and bias. You cite articles from the Middle East or Nigeria, but those are very different contexts. Maybe they are your context, I don't know, as you haven't said where you are from. My suspicion is that you are not from those areas, however. I have actually lived and worked in a non-Western country for years and I wasn't even raised in a religion, so I'm able to kind of look at religions as more or less equally valid/equally weird and I do have an international perspective. But I guess though by labeling me a "U.S. supremacist" who hasn't traveled you feel you can muddle the discussion further.

Really, you come off as someone who has a huge ax to grind with Muslims, and I don't feel like engaging you further as a result. I was wrong about the prevalence of hate crimes but only because Jewish people are the victim of so many more hate crimes than Muslims. Muslims still have the dubious honor of coming in second, however. https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2018/topic-pages/victims

As to the bulk of anti-Muslim bias coming from immigrant communities - where's your statistic for that? I doubt that it's the case simply because such groups make up such a small % of total U.S. citizens and I know plenty of white people who love saying Islamophobic crap and believe ridiculous things about Islam.

Anyway, feel free to write another paragraphs long response, but I'm disengaging. You can't have a good faith discussion when you won't acknowledge that context matters and it's impossible to have a realistic conversation about religious/racial bias on a personal level when your context is the entire world and all of history as well.