9/11-era ignorance of Islam is infecting the age of Isis. We should know better

Simran Jeet Singh

In the last two months, three major hate crimes have hit New York City, the most ethnically diverse place in the United States. Last week, a man chased a Muslim American woman into oncoming traffic in Brooklyn while threatening to behead her. Earlier this month, a group of teenagers physically assaulted a Sikh American while hurling racial slurs like “terrorist” and “Osama”. In late July, a man shouted similar epithets at Sandeep Singh before running him over with his truck and dragging him nearly 30 feet.

In the nearly 13 years since 9/11, and now in the three months since the Islamic State (Isis) broadcast its brand of fear to the west, a new de facto racial category has crystalized: “the apparent Muslim”. The “apparent Muslim” has physical features supposedly similar to those associated with terrorism – brown skin, facial hair, turbans – but those who use the presumptive discrimination end up conflating racial and religious features. Anyone who makes assumptions about “the apparent Muslim” – and that is a lot of people, whether consciously or not – is effectively subsuming a number of communities, including Arabs and Sikhs who do not identify with Islam.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/ignorance-islam-isis-hate-crimes