Nothing Has to Make Sense: Upholding White Supremacy through Anti-Muslim Racism

276 Pages·2022·2.213 MB·English

by  Sherene H. Razack

Nothing
Has to
Make Sense
U PH O L D I N G W H I T E
S U PR E M AC Y T H RO U G H
A N T I - M U S L I M R AC I S M
SHERENE H. RAZACK
Nothing Has to Make Sense
Muslim International
Sohail Daulatzai and Junaid Rana, Series Editors
With Stones in Our Hands: Writings on Muslims, Racism, and Empire
Sohail Daulatzai and Junaid Rana, Editors
Foucault in Iran: Islamic Revolution after the Enlightenment
Behrooz Ghamari- Tabrizi
Arc of the Journeyman: Afghan Migrants in England
Nichola Khan
Tolerance and Risk: How U.S. Liberalism Racializes Muslims
Mitra Rastegar
Nothing Has to Make Sense: Upholding White Supremacy through
Anti- Muslim Racism
Sherene H. Razack
Nothing Has
to Make Sense
UPHOLDING WHITE SUPREMACY
THROUGH ANTI- MUSLIM RACISM
Sherene H. Razack
Muslim International
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis | London
Portions of chapter 2 are adapted from “A Site/Sight We Cannot Bear: The Racial/Spatial
Politics of Banning the Muslim Woman’s Niqab,” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law
30, no. 1 (2018): 167–8 7; doi: 10.3138/cjwl.30.1.169; reprinted with permission from University
of Toronto Press, https://utpjournals.press. Portions of chapter 2 are adapted from “The
Racial/Spatial Politics of Banning the Muslim Women’s Niqab: A Site/Sight We Cannot Bear,”
in Law, Cultural Studies, and the “Burqa Ban” Trend: An Interdisciplinary Handbook, ed.
Anja Matwijkiw and Anna Oriolo (Cambridge, UK: Intersentia, 2021). Portions of chapter 3
are adapted from “‘A Catastrophically Damaged Gene Pool’: Law, White Supremacy, and the
Muslim Psyche,” in With Stones in Our Hands: Writings on Muslims, Racism, and Empire,
ed. Sohail Daulatzai and Junaid Rana, 183–2 00 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2018). Portions of chapter 4 are adapted from “‘We Didn’t Kill ’em, We Didn’t Cut Their Head
Off’: Abu Ghraib Revisited,” in Racial Formation in the Twenty- First Century, ed. Daniel
Martinez HoSang, Oneka LaBennett, and Laura Pulido, 217– 45 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2012).
Copyright 2022 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
ISBN 978- 1- 5179- 1234- 5 (hc)
ISBN 978- 1- 5179- 1235- 2 (pb)
Library of Congress record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061591.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-f ree paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer.
UMP BmB 2022
For my brother Zai
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Introduction Anti- Muslim Racism, Whiteness, 1
White Supremacy, and Law
1 “A New Phase of a Very Old War”: Islam and 51
White Conservative Christian Aggrievement
2 “I Can Never Tell If You’re Responding to My Smile”: 85
Desiring Muslim Women
3 “Terrorism in Their Genes”: Racial Science 115
and the Muslim Terrorist
4 “ We Didn’t Kill ’em, We Didn’t Cut Their Heads Off”: 145
Torture and the Making of American Innocence
Conclusion Arriving as Muslim 177
Acknowledgments 199
Notes 203
Index 251
a
b
c d
Figure 1. (a) “Allah Is Not God” T- shirt by TeeChip. (b) Anti- Muslim protestors at free
speech rally (Screenshot/Fox10). (c) “I’m Not Anti Islam, Islam Is Anti Me” T- shirt by Anti
Terror Designs. (d) “Infidel” T- shirt by Gadsden and Culpeper American Heritage Shoppe.
INTRODUCTION
Anti- Muslim Racism,
Whiteness, White
Supremacy, and Law
Once they are all in our heads, it is difficult to distinguish between
ghosts, demons, and dream figures.
— RENÉE L. BERGLAND, THE NATIONAL UNCANNY:
INDIAN GHOSTS AND AMERICAN SUBJECTS
In 2020, the year of Black Lives Matter protests worldwide and a global
pandemic, anti- Muslim T- shirts were in fashion. Sold everywhere, they
adorned protestors at freedom of speech rallies in Europe and North
America and were worn by political constituents of both the right and the
left, an indication of the political capital to be gained from denigrating
Muslims. The slogans ranged from in- your- face declarations that “Allah
Is Not God, Mohammed Is Not His Prophet” (Figure 1a) and “F**k Islam”
(Figure 1b) to cartoons from the French magazine Charlie Hebdo depict-
ing Muslim men and boys as rapists,1 to a more restrained “I’m Not Anti
Islam, Islam Is Anti Me” (Figure 1c) expressing a liberal feminist position
about Islam’s misogyny. The T- shirts are pedagogical sites that circulate
an anti-M uslim affect and provide a window into contemporary attitudes
to Islam and to Muslims. Through this window we see that Muslims re-
main entrenched in popular culture as a culturally backward, uncivilized
people of a religion that is antithetical to Christian and Western tradi-
tions. Muslims are cast as historical enemies and imagined as murderous
avengers invading and polluting white, Christian nations. Over time the
details of political imaginaries shift. The Muslim of the military expedi-
tions and wars of the Middle Ages and the barbarous occupiers of the
1