Subject: [SocialistWorker.org] Clinging to hateful stereotypes
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http://socialistworker.org/2012/09/19/clinging-to-hateful-stereotypes
Comment: Snehal Shingavi
======== CLINGING TO HATEFUL STEREOTYPES =====================================
September 19, 2012
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The last week provided another chapter in the ugly story of Islamophobia in
the U.S. as the media obsessed about "anti-American" demonstrations in the
Middle East that were sparked by a racist film. Amid all this, at the
University of Texas at Austin, school officials publicly reported that a bomb
threat on campus--which turned out to be a hoax--came from someone with a
"Middle Eastern accent" and connections to al-Qaeda.
On September 17, UT English professor Snehal Shingavi opened his class on
"Literature of Islamophobia" to the public for a discussion about this
bigoted response. Here, he discusses how stereotypes and distortions replace
real questioning about the causes of violence.
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THE BOMB threats that were delivered to five American
universities--University of (UT) Texas at Austin, North Dakota State,
Valparaiso, Louisiana State and UT- Brownsville--in the last five days should
be an occasion to consider the world we live in and how it affects us.
College campuses have never really been immune from broader historical
forces, nor have they been protected from violence. But what is striking
about the conversation that emerged in the tense atmosphere following bomb
threats that turned out to be largely hoaxes is how remarkably flat it is.
Once the terms "Arab" or "Islam" or their synonyms are thrown around, there
seems to be little attention paid to what is going on or why.
This last point bears underlining because it is the one claim that few are
willing to concede in liberal America. Yet "Islam" and "Arabs" seem only to
appear in the media or in conversation when the subject is about violence or
terrorism, with the effect that Islam has become /interchangeable/ with
violence. Intelligent conversation then stops, and the participants nod in
agreement: of course, those Muslims are always up to something. It was
perhaps convenient to the stereotypes that angry Arabs were in the streets
protesting as fake bomb threats were being made.
But even when it came to the recent protests in the Middle East over a vile
Islamophobic film, we encountered the same flat narrative. Angry Muslims were
responding irrationally to the liberal values of the West (free speech). Then
the vague "anti-American" label got repeated.
Few people were talking about the film and the provocative circumstances of
its production--the connections of the producer to far-right, Islamophobic
organizations, for instance. Even fewer were talking about the cynical way
that certain marginalized Muslim organizations were using the controversy
around the film to reignite their celebrity.
These protests, like the bomb threats, were supposed to be proof of the
truism that passes for scrutiny: Muslims are illiberal and dangerous.
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THAT SUCH intellectual laziness happens is not surprising. We live in a
country where one presidential candidate won't be photographed next to a
Muslim and the other cannot be bothered to learn how to pronounce a single
Arab or Muslim name correctly. That mosques are routinely vandalized and
torched without any mention only serves to highlight the quiet acceptance of
this mainstream political consensus. Muslims are merely tolerated here--they
endure American multiculturalism at their own peril.
But the fact that such intellectual laziness happens at a college campus is
maddening.
At two different University of Texas campuses, the specter of Islam was
raised as the source of two very different alleged plots.
In Austin, a caller identified by one UT staff person as having a "light
Middle Eastern accent" and connections to al-Qaeda made a bomb threat.
Despite recognizing early on that the call was likely a hoax and taking
emergency measures only as a precaution, the university still released
details about the caller's supposed identity. The possibility that the hoax
could have encompassed the accent and the al-Qaeda affiliation did not stop
the administration from defending their racial profile of the caller.
At UT-Brownsville, another bomb threat, also a hoax, was made by Henry Dewitt
McFarland, a veteran of the U.S. Marines who served time in Afghanistan, via
the National Veteran's Crisis Hotline. McFarland, who suffers from
post-traumatic stress disorder, was considering conversion to Islam. He
threatened to blow up a classmate who made derogatory comments about his new
religion with a bomb he claimed to have in his apartment. The authorities
found nothing in his apartment to suggest the threat was serious.
In both instances, the story required the sensationalism that only Islam and
Muslims could provide. Neither possible exam-related hoaxes--earlier in the
week, fire alarms were pulled in eight buildings at UT Austin--nor soldiers
returning with PTSD from their time abroad are the way we talk about our
state of permanent insecurity on college campuses, even though those stories
help to unpack the new realities of university life.
Without Islam, we would be forced to ask much harder questions about the
skyrocketing costs of higher education or the conditions that U.S. soldiers
face. We might be forced to ask why American drone aircraft violate national
sovereignty and kill with impunity. Much easier that we talk about Muslims.
And when critics raise the problems with this interpretation--that it
eliminates the deadliness of American foreign policy, that it lumps all Arabs
and Muslims together, that violent protests are almost always the work of
fringe groups--we are accused of naively pandering to the protocols of
political correctness.
Most bomb threats at college campuses are connected to two things: exams and
major (usually sporting) events. Colleges and universities have
well-developed protocols to deal with these threats because they have been a
regular part of their operations for years. One UT official explained that
the school gets four or five of these every year. Most go unannounced.
In the four years that I have worked at UT, I have only been evacuated once.
This is not to say that we shouldn't take bomb threats seriously. But we
ought to ask how we determine which ones we do take seriously, and why.
The majority of the insecurity that we face on college campuses has very
little to do with Islam. The events of Virginia Tech a few years ago serve as
a reminder that colleges and universities are not ivory towers disconnected
from real issues. We might add that the incessant cuts to university budgets
and the rising costs of tuition have also produced new, difficult conditions
for everyone on campus. That there are fewer health and psychological
services to deal with the problems these create is at least part of the
problem, too.
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THERE IS another story that we are not telling, either. Since 9/11, every
Muslim organization on a college campus has been audited by the FBI or the
Department of Homeland Security at least once. At UCLA, Muslims are the
subject of constant law enforcement surveillance. Most Muslim students keep
to themselves and associate only with other Muslims as a way to defend
themselves from racism. Few speak out about it because law enforcement has
been woefully inadequate about doing anything.
In fact, later this week, ACLU representatives will testify at Congressional
hearings about the failure of law enforcement agencies to do anything when
credible threats are made against Muslims and mosques.
In one incident in Antioch, Calif., authorities did nothing after they were
notified about threats against a mosque--it was set on fire in 2007. The
authorities even refuse to call this a hate crime.
In the interests of full disclosure, I'll say that I am named in the ACLU's
documents. In 2007, death threats were made against me. The ACLU discovered
that my political activism was ostensibly the reason that law enforcement did
not investigate the death threats or take them seriously. There is a reason
that we don't have good numbers on the real harassment, discrimination,
violence and fear that Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. feel.
There are real stories to tell here and real questions to ask--questions
that, when answered, might lead to real solutions to the insecurities we all
face on college campuses. But the story about Islam and terrorism is too
convenient. It lets everyone off the hook. And it keeps everyone permanently
insecure.
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