Imperial Whiteness and the Diasporas of Empire

Focusing on Arab diasporic engagements with the structures of Zionist and US imperial war within the United States, this essay calls for collapsing spatiotemporal distinctions between the Middle East and the United States in Middle East studies, American studies, and Arab American studies. The author reflects on the significance of imperialism and white supremacy to the experience of living a US and Israeli-led military invasion from the distance of the diaspora and to the criminalization of constitutionally protected political speech in support of Palestinian rights. In such cases, she argues, white supremacy conflates Arabness and Islam with “terrorism” transnationally, and the empire and the diaspora coconstitute each other as moving parts of the same imperial present.