First Draft

PROMPT: The issues that Muslims have faced and continue to face in America often intersect with issues that other groups with marginalized identities also face. Thinking about the texts we’ve studied so far, what is one way that the experience of Muslims seems distinctive from other groups? In considering this question, it will be important also to take into consideration what the intersections with other groups are and where the similarities are.

THESIS: The Muslim American experience is distinctive from other groups because of the normalization of Islamophobia, coupled with violent U.S. foreign policy towards Muslims abroad, all culminating in a uniquely isolating experience for Muslims in America.

Though there are many marginalized groups in America that are discriminated against, whether overtly or through socio-economic means, Muslims are a special case in that they exist in a largely Christian-dominant society, which has also villainized and stereotyped the Muslim image to the public. In “American Muslim Women”, Karim points out the intersection of Black Muslim Americans, and the conflict some feel of not being fully accepted into the Muslim immigrant community. Likewise, some Muslim immigrants feel as though Black Muslim Americans use their status as U.S. born citizens as a privilege over them in response to this discrimination. These concerns, while all valid, serve only as tools of divisiveness to divide marginalized people and keep them from realizing the root of their problems: white supremacy. As the foundation for our society, white supremacy is an umbrella term under which both racism and Islamophobia stem from. “In the face of the post 9/11 backlash, it is better to be an African American than an immigrant Muslim” (Karim 40). America stands in a strange position, as a relatively diverse society built upon white supremacy. It can lead to a hierarchical structure of race, that while always prioritizing whiteness, can lend to division in rank between other groups. Karim asks an important question when she asks, “But is there ever any real advantage in a society that always privileges whiteness (41)? 

Next, Karim remarks on not just the categorization and prioritization of race in America, but the conflict that arises from domestic and foreign policy of the U.S. government. It is the belief that Islam is inherently incompatible with Western values, and thus un-American. She states, “America’s current foreign policy, such as the war on terrorism, often perceived as a war against Muslims, sustains the dichotomy between the West and Islam, as do the Muslim extremism and violence that target Westerners” (42). Karim asserts that some Muslim immigrants might ignore the component of racism involved in maintaining American Imperialism. Though I would argue that, regardless of race or immigration status, Muslims in America understand that they are targeted in some way, and it is this unifier that creates more solidarity between different groups than division. “African American Muslims have charged immigrants of showing concern only for war, poverty, and political injustices occurring abroad, in places like Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq, and Chechnya, but not for the injustices affecting communities here in America” (43). Further, I would maintain that Muslims in America feel solidarity in some way with their community abroad. Black American Muslims can care for issues affecting both of their communities; no identity must be valued over the other.

Because of white supremacy and the dictating ideology that Islam is un-American, it leads some Black American Muslims to “capitulate to immigrant or foreign Muslim authority in shaping their American Muslim outlook” (43). In this way, Muslims sometimes also capitulate to dominant white-Christian narratives on what it means to be Muslim. The attitudes produced by a white-supremacist society are not reserved for white people, but can be learned by all races and adopted from those outside of America as well. 

Writer’s Q: Is my thesis statement effective in outlining the body of my work? Are my ideas concise?