American popular perception linked Islam to Black identity and decolonial violence until recent decades

Evidence

Conversions by prominent celebrities like Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul Jabbar also spotlighted Islam as a Black religion. Even as immigration from Asia brought other Muslims to the United States, it would be over a decade before Islam returned to the spotlight in a sustained way during the Iranian revolution. In the decades between the Iranian revolution and the war on terror, in the popular imagination, Islam was linked to the NOI at home and to decolonial violence abroad. … This article’s argument is categorically different; it is about the understanding of Islam itself as a non-white religion. There is ample evidence that Europeans saw it as a Black religion. One only has to read Othello. From the late nineteenth century to the mid-1900s, a shift began to take place in American perceptions of the racial character of Muslims and Islam. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 199

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for the MOC thread question: Islam as a Black religion anchored the domestic inversion moment (NOI/Malcolm/civil rights era) before the immigrant pathways fragmented the category — connects to earlier chapters on African-descended versus immigrant Islam. — connects to: Hip-hop and celebrity conversions cemented Islam’s association with Black American identity; Islam shaped African American racial identity formation throughout U.S. history; The American Muslim-as-public-enemy image shifted from black to brown — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 414 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The American Muslim-as-public-enemy image shifted from black to brown #expands (0.85) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 414
• In 1960s America Islam signified both Black radicalism and foreign menace #exemplifies (0.85) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1055
• Islam shaped African American racial identity formation throughout U.S. history #corroborates (0.82)
• Religious identity replaced ethnicity as the marker making Muslim Americans seen as anti-American #expands (0.78)
• Orientalist and anti-Black racial tropes of Islam merged in the 1920s #exemplifies (0.78)
• Muslim identity in America is socially constructed from legacies of slavery and Orientalism #corroborates (0.75)
• European colonial racial practice of differentiating Islam preceded and enabled modern Islamophobia #expands (0.72)