Responding to Islamophobia in Texas
The following is an invited paper I presented as part of “Politics, Power, and the Periphery:
Responses to the Recent Poll of Texas Muslims,” a panel discussion organized by University of Texas Middle Eastern Studies Graduate Student Association, Austin, TX in April 2017.
This panel brought together local scholars and community leaders to respond to an inflammatory letter sent by TX Rep. Kyle Biedermann to Texas Muslim leaders ahead of Texas Muslim Capitol Day as well as the forum he hosted at the Texas Capitol on "Defending Against Radical Islamic Terrorism in Texas." My presentation drew from the IDCL white paper "Understanding Islamophobia in the Texas Public Sphere."
I want to talk about Rep. Biedermann’s letter and subsequent forum and situate it within some patterns that have emerged in research undertaken by my organization, the Institute for Diversity and Civic Life. We’re a local non-profit research and educational organization with a mission to advance understanding of religious and cultural diversity and advocate for a more inclusive public sphere. As part of this broader work, we develop research and programs that aim at document and better understanding experiences of minority groups in the public sphere in Texas. We also work to foster more robust conversation about civic identity and belonging.
We began an initiative to document Islamophobia in Texas in late 2015. We saw that anti-Muslim bias was on the rise, but we wanted to better understand what this climate entailed. So we—a team of four-- set about to investigate incidents of Islamophobia in Texas over the previous five years and we put out a white paper last spring. The white paper drew primarily from media reports, social media posts, and government documents from 2011 – 2015, to identify patterns of public discourse as well as notable incidents of discrimination and hate crimes that received media attention. And we’re currently working on a 2016-2017 report that we’ll release in the fall. To address recent events, I want to talk about findings and emergent patterns from our previous report and a bit about some of the data we’ve gathered for the upcoming report, though the latter is still a work in progress.
It’s important to note that Texas has an increasingly diverse population. The state is among the fastest growing in the country. It’s a top immigrant destination and a top refugee resettlement location. It has the most ethnically diverse city in the country—Houston. And, Texas is home to the largest Muslim population of any state in the country (at least according to the 2010 US Religion Census), as well as the second largest South Asian population and fourth largest Arab population. This growing population is an important part of the fabric of Texas; yet, many Muslims in Texas—as well as those perceived to be Muslim-- face a social and political climate of bias and discrimination that situates them as marginal, foreign, or ‘other.’ Along these lines, Texas has seen an uptick in hate crimes against Muslims—and apparent Muslims—since 2015, which fits in a larger pattern across the country.
Texas has been a majority minority state since 2004—that means no demographic group makes up more than 50% of the population. Previous to that, non-Hispanic whites had been the majority. Non-Hispanic whites continue to be the largest demographic group, but not a majority. The Office of the State Demographer has projected that Hispanics/Latinx will become the largest group, outnumber non-Hispanic whites, in 2020 and make up the majority of the population by 2042. So part of this evolving diversity in Texas involves the contraction of the non-Hispanic white population, which has historically been a majority population. Also noteworthy, this minority demographic group holds power in Texas legislature. While whites make up only 43% of the Texas population overall, they make up 64% of the Texas legislature.
These demographic shifts provide an important backdrop for understanding the context of the Biedermann letter and Islamophobia in Texas. I argue that Islamophobia should be seen within dynamics of a minority group trying to hold on to their political power—white, Anglo, Christian hegemony—and these dynamics reveal a contested public sphere.
In our research, we define Islamophobia as a manufactured hostility and fear-based prejudice against Muslims or groups or individuals perceived as Muslims. The discourse of Islamophobia sets Islam as an alien religion and culture, presumably against a normative Christianity. Much of the Islamophobic discourse we have found attempts to stake a claim for a ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ Texas—ostensibly white and Christian-- against ‘outside, foreign’ threats to this identity or values. This Islamophobic discourse positions Islam and Muslims as essentialized and racialized categories. Muslims are seen as monolithic and homogeneous. ‘Muslims’ become a stand-in for a foreign ‘Other’ with beliefs, habits and values set as inherently incompatible with American—and Texan—values. In this way, Islamophobia is not about the religion of Islam, per se; it is about marking a group of people as ‘other’ and its impact extends far beyond just Muslims. In this climate, any brown-skinned person can be seen as Muslim-looking and therefore foreign or ‘other.’ Arab Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, and Latinos have all been conflated into the same identity. These racialized stereotypes also easily couple with nativist and anti-immigrant sentiments.
Drawing from media reports and government documents, our research reveals a number of features of this xenophobic atmosphere in Texas. The political climate of Texas is characterized by a significant amount of Islamophobic discourse from elected officials. Our research has found anti-Muslim rhetoric from Texas officials in all levels of government, from the governor’s office to US and state legislators to a local mayor, and other state officials. This rhetoric has emerged in public speeches and inflammatory social media posts as well as in the drafting of anti-Shariah law legislation and discriminatory anti-immigration policies. We saw this rhetoric increase with the presidential election cycle.
This discourse has also impacted public education in Texas, through state-mandated social studies standards and textbooks that misrepresent Islam, perpetuate Islamophobic stereotypes, with certain right-wing camps advocating for teaching Texas school children that this country is historically a Christian project and that the religion of Islam is both dangerous and foreign. (This controversy isn’t as recent as just the past year and has been ongoing for almost a decade). And of course, this raises a number of questions about how these messages influence bias and discrimination among those who aren’t Muslim? How do they impact the experiences of Muslim Texan school children, who don’t see themselves adequately reflected and recognized in their school curriculum? Texas public schools have also seen a number of instances in which Muslim children have been the subjects of slurs, profiling and unwarranted disciplinary measures. And this is something we’ve seen increase since 2015.
Our research has also uncovered numerous incidents of anti-Muslim violence and discrimination ranging from vandalism, assault, and threats of extreme violence to armed anti-Muslim demonstrations to deliberate exclusions of Muslim communities from public life. Inherent in the nature of hate crimes, they target an individual because of their group affiliation and they’re meant to send a message of intolerance to that larger group. So these crimes impact far more people than just the immediate victims. What’s more, hate crimes are notoriously underreported. There have also been a number of incidents of anti-Muslim bias—such as heavily armed anti-Muslim rallies -- that also contribute to a climate of intimidation and intolerance. Yet as legal expressions of First Amendment rights, these events are not hate crimes. However, they have a similar effect in their messages of hate, xenophobia, and racism and their efforts to exclude Muslims from public life. Taken as a whole, we can assume the impact of anti-Muslim bias and violence is far greater than what is currently quantified in media or government reports.
Consequently, we count the Biedermann letter and his subsequent forum on ‘Defending Against Radical Islamic Terrorism in Texas’ as data points within this climate of Islamophobia. The rhetoric of this letter and the forum reproduces a number of Islamophobic tropes— especially the ‘us’ vs ‘them’ rhetoric, in which ‘we’ are assumed to be Christian—and true Texans and Americans-- and ‘they’ are situated as foreign, dangerous, and a threat to so-called ‘Western’ values. Notably, a number Texas Representatives who spoke during the forum, especially Rep. Tony Tinderholt, continually tried to reiterate that their concern was not with individual Muslims, but with dangerous radical groups—essentially arguing that they were not biased against Muslim individuals. Subsequent rhetoric however, positioned the entire religion of Islam and all mosques as dangerous and in conflict with American values. Ostensibly, then, Muslims are welcome so long as they support a white Christian hegemony and denounce their own religion and cultures. This forum essentially served as, “a spectacle of intimidation by a state legislator to the Muslim community,” in the words of Habiba Noor. Noor has written about how this intimidation also aimed to delegitimize CAIR, the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the country. This can easily be seen as a challenge to Muslim agency. Also, while we have noted how this discourse shapes the Texas public sphere, this rhetoric and subsequent initiatives are not exclusive to Texas. They’ve been shaped by grassroots Islamophobia network, which is detailed in Fear Inc, spans the country and is heavily funded.
These patterns reveal a contested public sphere in which the identity of Texas, as a geographic, political, social, cultural, and civic space is being negotiated. Confronting this problematic climate is imperative for creating civic spaces that include Texans of all backgrounds. One point of change we’ve noticed so far in our research for the upcoming report is a greater awareness of Islamophobia and more coverage. What we can’t say for certain at this point, since we’re not just trying hate crimes but also public rhetoric, is whether this represents an increase in rhetoric or just an increase in media coverage.
But building an equitable and inclusive civil society is no easy task. As a community organization, IDCL would like to see a greater awareness of the dynamics of diversity in Texas as well as tools for engaging difference and supporting inclusive spaces. With this greater awareness, there is a need for a more expansive civic discourse on who “we” are as Texans. We need to reframe the conversation about who counts as a Texan away from an older idea of a singular identity toward a model of manyness. Many Texans are committed to fundamental civic values of individual liberty, religious freedom and equality. We need to ask how these values can galvanize and support a public square that allows for the free encounter of the many peoples of Texas.
And finally, we see a need for additional research to survey Muslims in Texas to gauge the extent to which they experience anti-Muslim bias and discrimination. There’s really very little data on this beyond officially reported hate crimes. This research will give us a much more expansive picture of the full scope and substantive impact of the rising anti-Muslim climate in Texas. For IDCL, this white paper is the first piece of a larger, imperative project.
Responses to the Recent Poll of Texas Muslims,” a panel discussion organized by University of Texas Middle Eastern Studies Graduate Student Association, Austin, TX in April 2017.
This panel brought together local scholars and community leaders to respond to an inflammatory letter sent by TX Rep. Kyle Biedermann to Texas Muslim leaders ahead of Texas Muslim Capitol Day as well as the forum he hosted at the Texas Capitol on "Defending Against Radical Islamic Terrorism in Texas." My presentation drew from the IDCL white paper "Understanding Islamophobia in the Texas Public Sphere."
I want to talk about Rep. Biedermann’s letter and subsequent forum and situate it within some patterns that have emerged in research undertaken by my organization, the Institute for Diversity and Civic Life. We’re a local non-profit research and educational organization with a mission to advance understanding of religious and cultural diversity and advocate for a more inclusive public sphere. As part of this broader work, we develop research and programs that aim at document and better understanding experiences of minority groups in the public sphere in Texas. We also work to foster more robust conversation about civic identity and belonging.
We began an initiative to document Islamophobia in Texas in late 2015. We saw that anti-Muslim bias was on the rise, but we wanted to better understand what this climate entailed. So we—a team of four-- set about to investigate incidents of Islamophobia in Texas over the previous five years and we put out a white paper last spring. The white paper drew primarily from media reports, social media posts, and government documents from 2011 – 2015, to identify patterns of public discourse as well as notable incidents of discrimination and hate crimes that received media attention. And we’re currently working on a 2016-2017 report that we’ll release in the fall. To address recent events, I want to talk about findings and emergent patterns from our previous report and a bit about some of the data we’ve gathered for the upcoming report, though the latter is still a work in progress.
It’s important to note that Texas has an increasingly diverse population. The state is among the fastest growing in the country. It’s a top immigrant destination and a top refugee resettlement location. It has the most ethnically diverse city in the country—Houston. And, Texas is home to the largest Muslim population of any state in the country (at least according to the 2010 US Religion Census), as well as the second largest South Asian population and fourth largest Arab population. This growing population is an important part of the fabric of Texas; yet, many Muslims in Texas—as well as those perceived to be Muslim-- face a social and political climate of bias and discrimination that situates them as marginal, foreign, or ‘other.’ Along these lines, Texas has seen an uptick in hate crimes against Muslims—and apparent Muslims—since 2015, which fits in a larger pattern across the country.
Texas has been a majority minority state since 2004—that means no demographic group makes up more than 50% of the population. Previous to that, non-Hispanic whites had been the majority. Non-Hispanic whites continue to be the largest demographic group, but not a majority. The Office of the State Demographer has projected that Hispanics/Latinx will become the largest group, outnumber non-Hispanic whites, in 2020 and make up the majority of the population by 2042. So part of this evolving diversity in Texas involves the contraction of the non-Hispanic white population, which has historically been a majority population. Also noteworthy, this minority demographic group holds power in Texas legislature. While whites make up only 43% of the Texas population overall, they make up 64% of the Texas legislature.
These demographic shifts provide an important backdrop for understanding the context of the Biedermann letter and Islamophobia in Texas. I argue that Islamophobia should be seen within dynamics of a minority group trying to hold on to their political power—white, Anglo, Christian hegemony—and these dynamics reveal a contested public sphere.
In our research, we define Islamophobia as a manufactured hostility and fear-based prejudice against Muslims or groups or individuals perceived as Muslims. The discourse of Islamophobia sets Islam as an alien religion and culture, presumably against a normative Christianity. Much of the Islamophobic discourse we have found attempts to stake a claim for a ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ Texas—ostensibly white and Christian-- against ‘outside, foreign’ threats to this identity or values. This Islamophobic discourse positions Islam and Muslims as essentialized and racialized categories. Muslims are seen as monolithic and homogeneous. ‘Muslims’ become a stand-in for a foreign ‘Other’ with beliefs, habits and values set as inherently incompatible with American—and Texan—values. In this way, Islamophobia is not about the religion of Islam, per se; it is about marking a group of people as ‘other’ and its impact extends far beyond just Muslims. In this climate, any brown-skinned person can be seen as Muslim-looking and therefore foreign or ‘other.’ Arab Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, and Latinos have all been conflated into the same identity. These racialized stereotypes also easily couple with nativist and anti-immigrant sentiments.
Drawing from media reports and government documents, our research reveals a number of features of this xenophobic atmosphere in Texas. The political climate of Texas is characterized by a significant amount of Islamophobic discourse from elected officials. Our research has found anti-Muslim rhetoric from Texas officials in all levels of government, from the governor’s office to US and state legislators to a local mayor, and other state officials. This rhetoric has emerged in public speeches and inflammatory social media posts as well as in the drafting of anti-Shariah law legislation and discriminatory anti-immigration policies. We saw this rhetoric increase with the presidential election cycle.
This discourse has also impacted public education in Texas, through state-mandated social studies standards and textbooks that misrepresent Islam, perpetuate Islamophobic stereotypes, with certain right-wing camps advocating for teaching Texas school children that this country is historically a Christian project and that the religion of Islam is both dangerous and foreign. (This controversy isn’t as recent as just the past year and has been ongoing for almost a decade). And of course, this raises a number of questions about how these messages influence bias and discrimination among those who aren’t Muslim? How do they impact the experiences of Muslim Texan school children, who don’t see themselves adequately reflected and recognized in their school curriculum? Texas public schools have also seen a number of instances in which Muslim children have been the subjects of slurs, profiling and unwarranted disciplinary measures. And this is something we’ve seen increase since 2015.
Our research has also uncovered numerous incidents of anti-Muslim violence and discrimination ranging from vandalism, assault, and threats of extreme violence to armed anti-Muslim demonstrations to deliberate exclusions of Muslim communities from public life. Inherent in the nature of hate crimes, they target an individual because of their group affiliation and they’re meant to send a message of intolerance to that larger group. So these crimes impact far more people than just the immediate victims. What’s more, hate crimes are notoriously underreported. There have also been a number of incidents of anti-Muslim bias—such as heavily armed anti-Muslim rallies -- that also contribute to a climate of intimidation and intolerance. Yet as legal expressions of First Amendment rights, these events are not hate crimes. However, they have a similar effect in their messages of hate, xenophobia, and racism and their efforts to exclude Muslims from public life. Taken as a whole, we can assume the impact of anti-Muslim bias and violence is far greater than what is currently quantified in media or government reports.
Consequently, we count the Biedermann letter and his subsequent forum on ‘Defending Against Radical Islamic Terrorism in Texas’ as data points within this climate of Islamophobia. The rhetoric of this letter and the forum reproduces a number of Islamophobic tropes— especially the ‘us’ vs ‘them’ rhetoric, in which ‘we’ are assumed to be Christian—and true Texans and Americans-- and ‘they’ are situated as foreign, dangerous, and a threat to so-called ‘Western’ values. Notably, a number Texas Representatives who spoke during the forum, especially Rep. Tony Tinderholt, continually tried to reiterate that their concern was not with individual Muslims, but with dangerous radical groups—essentially arguing that they were not biased against Muslim individuals. Subsequent rhetoric however, positioned the entire religion of Islam and all mosques as dangerous and in conflict with American values. Ostensibly, then, Muslims are welcome so long as they support a white Christian hegemony and denounce their own religion and cultures. This forum essentially served as, “a spectacle of intimidation by a state legislator to the Muslim community,” in the words of Habiba Noor. Noor has written about how this intimidation also aimed to delegitimize CAIR, the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the country. This can easily be seen as a challenge to Muslim agency. Also, while we have noted how this discourse shapes the Texas public sphere, this rhetoric and subsequent initiatives are not exclusive to Texas. They’ve been shaped by grassroots Islamophobia network, which is detailed in Fear Inc, spans the country and is heavily funded.
These patterns reveal a contested public sphere in which the identity of Texas, as a geographic, political, social, cultural, and civic space is being negotiated. Confronting this problematic climate is imperative for creating civic spaces that include Texans of all backgrounds. One point of change we’ve noticed so far in our research for the upcoming report is a greater awareness of Islamophobia and more coverage. What we can’t say for certain at this point, since we’re not just trying hate crimes but also public rhetoric, is whether this represents an increase in rhetoric or just an increase in media coverage.
But building an equitable and inclusive civil society is no easy task. As a community organization, IDCL would like to see a greater awareness of the dynamics of diversity in Texas as well as tools for engaging difference and supporting inclusive spaces. With this greater awareness, there is a need for a more expansive civic discourse on who “we” are as Texans. We need to reframe the conversation about who counts as a Texan away from an older idea of a singular identity toward a model of manyness. Many Texans are committed to fundamental civic values of individual liberty, religious freedom and equality. We need to ask how these values can galvanize and support a public square that allows for the free encounter of the many peoples of Texas.
And finally, we see a need for additional research to survey Muslims in Texas to gauge the extent to which they experience anti-Muslim bias and discrimination. There’s really very little data on this beyond officially reported hate crimes. This research will give us a much more expansive picture of the full scope and substantive impact of the rising anti-Muslim climate in Texas. For IDCL, this white paper is the first piece of a larger, imperative project.
Comments
Post a Comment