Brennon Mendez
Raymond Smith
Race and Ethnicity in American Politics
21 April 2015
Hate Crimes Issue Brief: Violence Against Middle Eastern Americans
Key words:
1) Hate crime: "crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, gender or
gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity", which can
include physical assault, sexual assault, threats of violence, mosque arson, and
desecration of religious property as defined by the Hate Crime Statistics Act of
1990 (“What is a Hate Crime…”)
2) Hate group: an organization "hav[ing] beliefs or practices that attack or malign an
entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics"
3) Islamophobia: dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a
political force
Description:
A review of the political factors, cultural misconceptions, and media biases that
contribute to the disproportionate targeting of Muslim Americans or Americans perceived
as Muslim in religiously-motivated hate crimes, drawing on statistics collected by federal
agencies—the FBI—and leading publications—the Washington Post.
Key points:
1) “Comparing the 12-month intervals “pre-9/11 to post-9/11, a growth of 1600%
took place [for anti-Muslim hate crimes]” according to FBI recordkeeping
(“Statistics”).
2) “A majority -- 52 percent -- of Americans said Islam is more likely than other
religions to encourage violence; suspicion of Islam was much higher among
Republicans—74 percent—than Democrats—41 percent”, according to a survey
conducted by The Economist (Sledge).
3) “One-third of victims of hate crime are under the age of 18” according to the
research of the Los Angeles City Attorney's office (“Statistics”).
4) The Muslim Public Affairs Council attributes the underreporting of hate crimes to
several sociopolitical factors: “distrust towards government due to post-911
policies and programs, lack of knowledge about the criminal justice system, fear
of retaliation, linguistic and cultural barriers, immigration status, apathy towards
recourse and prior negative experience with government agencies” (“Statistics”).
5) In 2012, 939 active hate groups exist in the United States-a 56 percent increase
since 2000, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
6) From 2001-2012, Muslim Americans accounted for 12.1 of all religiouslymotivated hate crimes, despite only constituting 1% of the U.S. population
(Duffy).
Figure 1: "Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes...", The Washington Post
Brief:
Without a doubt, 9/11 amplified American Islamophobia overnight and ushered in
a new epoch of violence against Muslim Americans: “Following the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001, the number of hate crimes directed against Arab Americans,
Muslims, and Sikhs escalated dramatically. In 2001, Arab Americans, Muslims, and
Sikhs were victimized in nearly five percent of the total number of hate crimes reported
that year (481 out of 9,730), a seventeen-fold increase over the prior year” (“Hate
Crimes…). According to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, “while
the number of reported hate crimes against Arab Americans, Muslims, and Sikhs has
declined from the peak of 2001, it remains substantially above pre-2001 levels. In 2007,
for example, 115 hate crimes were reported — more than four times as many as were
reported in 2000” (“Hate Crimes…). Since 9/11, the absolute number of hate crimes
against Jews has fallen, with part of that burden falling on Muslims. FBI Uniform Crime
Reports show that Muslims accounted for only 2% of all religiously-motivated hate
crimes from 1995-2000 but increased dramatically to 12.1% from 2001-2012.
Meanwhile, in that same time interval, anti-Jewish hate crimes decreased from 78.6% to
66% (“Snapshot…”).
In a Newsweek article, Peter Beinhart characterized the anti-Muslim media bias as
the conduit through which Islamophobic politicians incite violence in the American
public: “at least since 9/11, ‘terror’ and ‘homeland security’ have been terms that connote
the danger that Muslims pose to non-Muslims, not the other way around…this very fear
of Muslim violence may be sparking anti-Muslim violence, and hysteria-peddling
politicians bear some of the blame” (Beinhart). For example, ramping up to the 2008
general election, Fox News anchors took to referring to the current President as “Barack
Hussein Obama”, which many Democrats took as a deliberate act of inciting anti-Muslim
sentiment solely by virtue of his middle name, regardless of his lack of Muslim faith or
Middle Eastern ancestry.
Beinhart is also deeply concerned with the fact that “‘Islamism’ has become the
same kind of catchall phrase that ‘communism’ was in the 1950s, which means it ranges
from people who want to kill Americans to people who just hold a different vision of
society,” which he believes fosters an indiscriminate McCarthyite labeling of all
American Muslims as a threat to their fellow countrymen (Beinhart). Some leftist
academics believed this to be the inevitable offshoot of longstanding Republican practice
of “cultivating the US (and by extension the global) public opinion against Iran, having
already done a great deal by being a key propaganda tool at the disposal of the Bush
administration during its prolonged wars in such Muslim countries as Afghanistan (since
2001) and Iraq (since 2003)” (Dabashi). Gayatri Spivak argues that in the Orientalist
Western perspective promotes this imperialist notion of “white men saving brown women
from brown men” which justifies white violence against brown Middle Eastern bodies
(Dabashi).
A more egregious example of Islamophobic political rhetoric is Oklahoma state
Rep. John Bennett’s incendiary remarks that Muslims are "a cancer that must be cut out
of the American society [that seek] the destruction of Western civilization from within",
which received a standing ovation from his Oklahoman constituents. (Obeidallah). Local
community leaders such as Adam Soltani of the CAIR and Anthony Douglas of the
NAACP stated that Bennett has shifted "from inflammatory rhetoric to a call to violence
that might incite people who might not know any better" and “promot[ed] hatred and
possibly even violence against Muslim Americans”, respectively (Obeidallah). Similarly,
Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh campaigned by scapegoating Muslims and stating that
they "are here trying to kill Americans every week" and are planning an attack that would
"make 9/11 look like child's play" (“Anti-Muslim Violence…”). While blatantly
Islamophobic comments made for a successful Congressional campaign, they perpetuated
pervasive anti-Muslim sentiment in Illinois, in which one mosque was shot at during a
Ramadan service while another was the target of an acid bomb in the week following
Walsh's Islamophobic rhetoric (“Anti-Muslim Violence…”). Thomas Perez, the assistant
U.S. attorney general for civil rights, has remarked, “in each city and town where I have
met with [Muslim] leaders, I have been struck by the fear that pervades their lives"
(Maygers).
Post-9/11 anti-Muslim sentiment is pervasive, taking hold in American cities
normally lauded for their progressive cosmopolitanism. New Yorkers carried signs at
protests against a downtown Manhattan mosque with the slogan, "Everything I need to
know about Islam I learned on 9/11" (Hochschild 7). In 2012, an Indian immigrant
Sunando Sen was murdered by Erika Menendez, who thought he was a Muslim and
pushed him in front of an oncoming train, later stating, "’I pushed a Muslim off the train
tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims… Ever since 2001 when they put down the
Twin Towers, I've been beating them up’" (Santora). In December 2012, imams found a
mutilated dead pig on the stoop of their local mosque, which, given the fact that Muslims
consider pigs unclean animals unfit for consumption, shows that the perpetrator’s actions
constitute a threat of anti-Muslim violence (“Muslims Discover…”).
Figure 2: Victims and Perpetrator of Feb. 2015 Chapel Hill Shooting, BBC News US
& Canada
The most recent well-publicized anti-Muslim hate crime occurred in February
2015, when three Muslim college students were shot and killed execution-style by Craig
Stephen Hicks. Yusor Abu-Salha raised concerns about Hicks to her father a week before
her murder: “'Honest to God, he hates us for what we are and how we look” (Chumley).
The national media attention afforded to this hate crime, due to its egregious nature, is
anomalous; most anti-Muslim hate crimes receiving significantly less media coverage
than other hate crimes because they don't fit the prevailing media narrative of the
Muslims as the perpetrators rather than the victims of religiously-motivated violence.
Beinhart views the political rhetoric, media coverage, and public sentiment
regarding anti-Muslim hate crimes as deeply interconnected: “Maybe if the media
covered the attacks American Muslims endure as vigorously as they cover the attacks
American Muslims commit, more people would realize that… the more American
politicians insist that Islam is inherently hateful and violent, the more hate and violence
they foment against Muslims in the U.S.” (Beinhart). One could view the mainstream
media’s surprisingly sympathetic coverage of these Muslim victims as a harbinger of
increased religious tolerance and nonviolence, but that would be naïve and unproductive.
The fact of the matter is that even if the coverage of the North Carolina shootings are a
step in the right direction, the media, politicians, and the American public have a long
way to go in combating the pervading Islamophobic sentiment that engenders so much
violence against Middle Eastern Americans.
Works Cited:
"Anti-Muslim Violence Spiralling out of Control in America." - Al Jazeera English. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/20121230135815198642.ht
ml>.
Beinhart, Peter. "A Quiet Campaign of Violence Against American Muslims."
Newsweek. Newsweek, 20 Aug. 2012. Web. 03 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.newsweek.com/quiet-campaign-violence-against-american-muslims64443>.
"Brooklyn Man Who Attacked Two Muslim Women Has 34 Prior Convictions: DA." NY
Daily News. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2015. <http://www.nydailynews.com/newyork/nyc-crime/brooklyn-man-attacked-muslim-women-34-prior-convictions-daarticle-1.1929797>.
Chumley, Cheryl K. "Mohammad Abu-Salha, Dad of Dead Muslim Girl: Craig Stephen
Hicks Did ‘hate Crime’." Washington Times. The Washington Times, n.d. Web.
03 Mar. 2015. <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/12/mohammadabu-salha-dad-of-dead-muslim-girl-craig-s/>.
Duffy, Bob, and Stanner James. Perceptions Are Not Reality: Things the World Gets
Wrong. Rep. King's College, London: Ipso MORI, 2014. Print.
"FBI Press Release: 2013 Hate Crime Statistics." FBI. FBI, 08 Dec. 2014. Web. 01 Mar.
2015. <http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2013-hatecrime-statistics>.
Hamid Dabashi (06-01-2006). "Native informers and the making of the American
empire". Al-Ahram, # 797. Retrieved 09-01-2008.
"Hate Crimes Against Arab Americans, Muslims, and Sikhs - Confronting the New Faces
of Hate." The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. N.p., n.d. Web.
02 Mar. 2015.
Ingraham, Christopher. "Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes Are Still Five times More Common
Today than before 9/11." The Washington Post [Washington D.C.] 11 Feb. 2015:
n. pag. Print.
Jackson, David. "Obama Rejects Congressional Black Caucus Criticism." USA Today 3
Dec. 2009: n. pag. Content.usatoday.com. Web.
Maygers, Bryan. "Muslim Discrimination Cases Disproportionately High In U.S." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2015.
"Muslims Discover Dead Pig at Entrance to Mosque Islamic Outreach Center in Cypress,
Texas." ABC7 Chicago. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2015.
<http://abc7chicago.com/archive/8910670/>.
Obeidallah, Dean. "A New Low in Anti-Muslim American Bias." CNN. Cable News
Network, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/19/opinion/obeidallah-anti-muslim-bias/>.
Santora, Marc. "Woman Is Charged With Murder as a Hate Crime in a Fatal Subway
Push." The New York Times 29 Dec. 2012: n. pag. Print.
Sledge, Matt. "Muslim Americans Widely Seen As Victims Of Discrimination." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/23/muslim-americansdiscrimination_n_6738642.html>.
"Snapshot: Hate Crime in America, by the Numbers." NBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 24
Feb. 2015. <http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/jewish-centershootings/snapshot-hate-crime-america-numbers-n81521>.
"Statistics." - Muslim Public Affairs Council. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.mpac.org/programs/hate-crime-prevention/statistics.php>.
"Thousands Mourn Chapel Hill Victims." BBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31438062>.
Relevant Websites:
cair.com
civilrights.com
fbi.gov
mpac.org