Islamophobia

Todd Green addresses the challenge of Islamophobia in North America and Europe—and critiques the distortions that often appear in the media.

Donald Trump’s proposal to screen all Muslims in the U.S. has drawn considerable backlash from liberals and conservatives alike. Journalists, bloggers, politicians, and religious leaders have condemned Trump’s plan and argued that it is inconsistent with core American values such as equality and religious freedom. They argue, rightly, that Trump’s comments are definitive proof that he shouldn’t be president. Really, he shouldn’t be anywhere near the presidency. He shouldn’t even be allowed to watch The West Wing.

This criticism is justified and necessary, but it is unlikely to be heard by those most drawn to Trump’s rhetoric.

In the immediate aftermath of the bombing in Boston, an injured marathon spectator was tackled by another bystander and then taken into police custody. His apartment was searched. Read Amy Davidson's post.

Amy Waldman's debut novel asks us to take a long look at our post-9/11 selves and be disappointed.

Some of the best coverage of the firing of National Public Radio news analyst Juan Williams has been NPR's own. But the broader conversation has quickly become a chorus of ridiculousness.

Unlike in previous eras, when the majority of our risks came from natural sources, today the majority of our risks are "manufactured." We humans create them.

I travel to the Middle East at least once each year, often visiting
multiple countries. I belong to an evangelical-Muslim discussion group
which meets annually, and the participants include pious, brilliant,
generous Muslim scholars whom I count as my friends. When a topic like
"Islamophobic America" comes up, I share intense personal e-mails with
them. But I came away from my trip to the Middle East this past summer with some new concerns.

I used to sit on the front porch with my grandmother, otherwise the
gentlest, most unconditionally loving person in my young life, while
she regaled me with stories about what was going on under the dome of
the Roman Catholic cathedral one block away. They're storing guns in
the basement, Grandma assured me, and I imagined that the windows in
the dome were gunports through which "they" planned to fire on the rest
of the city.

A recent cover of Time magazine asked: “Is America Islamophobic?” A Time survey discovered equivocal evidence on the question.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll, 54 percent of New York State voters agree "that because of American freedom of religion, Muslims have the right to build the mosque near Ground Zero." That strikes me as a shockingly small majority—almost half don’t feel that “religious freedom” by definition applies to all religions, even when the question’s put that way?—but hey, glad to hear of majority support for basic American principles, right?