Shortly after his inauguration, President Joe Biden reversed former President’s Donald Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban, stating those actions are a stain on our national conscience.” This stance aligns with that of the tens of thousands of protesters who, at the time the first Muslim Travel Ban was enacted in January 2017, took to the streets and to airports across the country with slogans such as, “We are all Immigrants,” “Standing with Muslims against Islamophobia,” and “Stop Hatred against Muslims.” To be sure, the Muslim Travel Ban is a racist policy. It seeks to keep out or deport people perceived to be Muslim based upon the racist assumption that “they” are violent potential terrorist enemies of the U.S. nation. The ban was an executive order that prevented individuals from primarily Muslim countries, and later, from many African countries, from entering the United States.
Yet ending the Muslim Ban only scratches the surface of a much larger problem. If progressives really want to end anti-Muslim racism, we are going to need a more radical approach, that requires, as Angela Davis reminds us, “grasping things at the root.” The root cause of the Muslim Ban is anti-Muslim racism, which has many roots. Europeans perceived Islam and Muslims as a barbaric threat ever since its arrival in the 7th century. White Christian supremacist thought perceived “Islam” as a threat when Black people found within it liberatory possibilities in the context of the transatlantic slave trade and far beyond. Contemporary anti-Muslim racism grew especially out of the post-Cold War period when the U.S. began launching its imperialist wars in the Arab region and growing its unconditional support for Israeli settler-colonialism. Out of this context, anti-Muslim racism, based on the idea that all Palestinians and Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are potential terrorists, was institutionalized through domestic and global policies and the U.S. corporate media’s rhetoric.
Read the complete article at: Chicago Reporter
Blatant Racism Blatant Racism
At least 8 Democrats boycotting State of the Union over ‘racist,’ ‘divisive’ remarks
At least eight House Democrats now have said they will boycott President Donald Trump‘s State of the Union speech, citing his divisive rhetoric and, in some cases, his reported use of a slur to describe African countries during a White House meeting on immigration.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., announced over Twitter in early January that he would not attend the speech, later adding that he would send a guest in his place, an Oregon resident and recipient of protections under the DACA program for immigrants brought into the U.S. illegally as children. Read More …
ep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., announced over Twitter in early January that he would not attend the speech, later adding that he would send a guest in his place, an Oregon resident and recipient of protections under the DACA program for immigrants brought into the U.S. illegally as children.ep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., announced over Twitter in early January that he would over Twitter in early January that he wouldnot attend the speech, later adding that he would send a guest in his place, an Oregon resident and recipient of protections under the DACA program for immigrants brought into the U.S. illegally as children.ep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., announced over Twitter in early January that he would not attend the speech, later adding that he would send a guest in his place, an Oregon resident and recipient of protections under the DACA program for immigrants brought into the U.S. illegally as children.ep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., announced over Twitter in early January that he would not attend the speech, later adding that he would send a guest in his place, an Oregon resident and recipient of protections under the DACA program for immigrants brought into the U.S. illegally as children.