Goals:
- Understand the roots of the rise of Islamo-racism in Orientalism, war, and imperialism, in the context of race and white supremacy, and how this is constructing a specific racial identity among those perceived to be Muslim.
- Be able to connect today’s use of Islamo-racism to drum up white nationalism to other historical moments of xenophobia and nativism.
- Explore how Muslim, Arab, Sikh, and South Asian people are fighting Islamo-racism, and why it is critical to see those fights as key to dismantling white supremacy.
Key concepts: Islamo-racism, white nationalism. Assumes basic knowledge of: Race, white supremacy, Orientalism, imperialism, capitalism, settler colonialism.
*This is an excerpt from the Asian American Racial Justice Toolkit. The toolkit represents the work and thinking of 15 grassroots organizations with Asian American bases living in the most precarious margins of power and their experiences with criminalization, deportation, homophobia, xenophobia and Islamo-racism, war, gender violence, poverty, and worker exploitation. By highlighting the role of people’s resistance both past and present, the toolkit seeks to build hope and a commitment to political struggle.
To find the full toolkit, visit asianamtoolkit.org. Or access other workshops from this toolkit on Build the Wheel.