Reading Hamid, Reading Coates: Juxtaposing Anti-Muslim and Anti-Black Racism in Current Times

My paper takes as its starting point the persistence and prevalence of Islamophobia in relation to racism, particularly differential racisms in America. There is abundant rhetoric about Islam and Muslims in the public sphere, in popular culture, and in academic settings. Some of the discussions are thoughtful and complex, while others are simplistic and superficial. However, the overall impression of Islam and Muslims is dominated by hatred and dangerous misunderstanding. I explore the construction of anti-Muslim racism in the United States in order to examine how such negative sentiments get shaped and circulated and where the possibilities lie for breaking the hold of deeply hostile preconceptions in the public sphere about Islam and Muslims. I examine two texts—Ta-Nehisi Coates's "Between the World and Me" and Mohsin Hamid's "The Reluctant Fundamentalist"—to consider issues of power, representation, and belonging in the encounters and interactions between people of color / Muslims and the wider US population. I discuss Muslim / African American identities through a reading of these two texts and explore, through my students' responses to them in a course on Gender in Global Context, both the challenges and potential to engage diverse racialization experiences in meaningful and productive ways.