A single column can criminalize a quarter of the world’s population

Evidence

Friedman’s demand was, of course, entirely rhetorical. Yet it defies reason that he could, with a single column, criminalize the more than 1.5 billion Muslims—a quarter of the world’s population. How could this be the common wisdom of a nation, a people, a country—an empire? — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 50

Categorization

• SEED: Angle for an essay: the rhetorical mechanics by which an entire demographic gets assigned collective guilt in a single media artifact.