Fabricating Difference - Steven W Ramey

Fabricating Difference - Steven W Ramey

9. Racialized Religion in America: Terrorist Bodies, Turbans, and Mistaken Identity

Fabricating Difference - Steven W Ramey

Martha Smith Roberts [+-]
Fullerton College
Martha Smith Roberts is Assistant Professor of Religion at Fullerton College. Martha's teaching covers all aspects of religion in culture and the diversity of religious traditions around the world. Her research and writing focus on North American religious diversity and pluralism, race and ethnicity, new religious movements, and religious studies pedagogy. She has written articles on hula hooping, communities of practice, antiracist pedagogy, and religious diversity and pluralism in the United States.

Description

In the United States, people who identify as Muslims become caught within the rhetoric of authentic / inauthentic religion. The discourse of pluralism accepts different religious identifications, but discourses of American security often attempt to exclude Islam as a threat, leading to the racialization of Islam that marks anyone who presents physical markers, including skin tone, that some associate with Islam to be a potential threat. Procedures of monitoring and acts of revenge both focus on bodies that are marked as different in these ways. Such actions have resulted in violence against people who identify both as Muslim and as non-Muslim because they fit a particular phenotype, generating efforts by some to emphasize their non-Muslim identification over any ethnic or national identification. These confusions also generate calls to promote better religious education in society and encourage some who identify as Muslim to turn outside the United States for community and safety.

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Citation

Smith Roberts, Martha. 9. Racialized Religion in America: Terrorist Bodies, Turbans, and Mistaken Identity. Fabricating Difference. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 100-109 Jul 2017. ISBN 9781781794876. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=31452. Date accessed: 19 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.31452. Jul 2017

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