Is Islamophobia Racism?

The probably the last kind of "acceptable" racism, Islamophobia is just an manifestation of the unbroken chain of racism launched against a "minority" in a time of paranoia and ignorance.

During WWII, it was "acceptable" to refer to the Japanese as "Japs", a racist slur meant to degrade those of Japanese origins. The press used the term, it was used on movies and even in cartoons and no one got in trouble or feared any backlash. Many justified it as treating the Japanese as the enemy and as the enemy, there is no need to respect them.

Although America was at war with the Germans, Italians, and Japanese, only the Japanese Americans were made to suffer persecution and eventually forced into internment camps. The Japanese were seen by the ignorant and racist people as all or mostly sly and sneaky and people who cannot be trusted. German and Italian Americans did not suffer such a fate because they were white, and just from appearance alone, you cannot tell if someone is a German or an Italian or if he or she is Irish or French.

Now blacks back then were called Negro or colored. If a black person did anything or even was mentioned in the news, his race was always identified. If a white person did anything or even was mentioned in the news, his race was not identified except on rare occasions. It took many decades to fight the double-standards and racism against blacks to even come to this point where the race of the individual is not always mentioned if they are not white, and we still have a long way to go to seeing the evil of racism go away for good.

Now to the current reality. There is an acceptable racism today and it is Islamophobia. Islamophobes try to justify this in the same way and approach as the racists trying to justify calling people "Japs" or fearing racial integration because it might lead to problems between the races and what not. It's a time of war, it's a time where we need to know the enemy, it's a time where we cannot afford to be politically correct because that can cause us to have more problems from our enemies in the future and so on. The endless list of justifications continues to be the tool for trying to make Islamophobia acceptable to the public.

But the racists never learn from history. History has shown that there has been a momentum in movements that are preaching racism and paranoia of a people, but decades, and some cases centuries later, people realized the flaw and the evil of such things. But unfortunately, racism has managed to pop its ugly head out and control the minds and actions of many people who have fallen into its wicked traps over and over again. We are supposed to learn from mistakes not repeat them, thinking that someday these mistakes will no longer be mistakes.

Hate crimes have origins from ignorance and paranoia. It is a reaction to something a person thought was wrong or not good. If an ignorant person is fed with constant stream of information that are negative about a people and their culture and beliefs, he or she might react in a negative way.

But are Muslims a race? Of course not, so how can Islamophobia be defined as racism?

Simple. Nearly all Muslims are non white, while the overwhelming majority of Islamophobes are white. But that per se does not make it racism unless the pattern follows a certain trend.

You may ask, what is this trend? The trend of shifting racism from one group to the next and create a case or even a cause to justify the racism. Decades ago, whites had no problem being openly racist against blacks. Decades later, most racist would not dare to be openly racist against blacks because the fear of a backlash. Now there is a new bogeyman and it happens to be Muslims.

It would be totally politically incorrect to say blacks are more prone to crime, even though some people will say that statistics will prove that to be the case. But for some reason, it is acceptable to say that Muslims are more prone to terrorism and people will say that statistics will prove this to be the case. Why the double-standard? Because today, it is unacceptable to be openly racist against blacks and to even say blacks are more prone to crime would be politically incorrect, but to say Muslims are more prone to terrorism is acceptable. So now we see a clear shift of open racism against one minority group (blacks and other non whites) to another (Muslims).

So why when a Muslim does a violent act, his religion affliation is always mentioned, even if was not done in the name of Islam? Why did the press decades ago always mentioned the race of a person who happened to be black, regardless of what he did? The trend of double-standards and racism continue today and we must learn from the mistakes in the past and try not to repeat them.

But for some reason, we continue to repeat what is wrong instead of what is right....