Bigotry rather than group difference undermines democratic life

Evidence

When contemporary anti-Muslim bigotry is viewed in the larger context of the history of religious and racial prejudice in American politics, instructive patterns emerge that have gone unnoticed in the public square because most Americans have sought to understand the violent events like 9/11 and the bigotry against Muslims in terms of religion. The lesson in this history is that bigotry and prejudice have played a central role in US history as a means of controlling racial and religious diversity and building national unity. Today, Muslims may be targets of this pattern of democratic governance, but with tomorrow’s crisis, it may be another group. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 300 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Those who have written about the antiracist struggles of these years tend to identify cross-cultural consolidation as essential to the fight against white racism. Kenan Malik, for example, has written of how the Indian Workers Association of the 1960s and 1970s included not just Indians but Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, too. … However, as James Procter notes, “while the inclusive nature of ‘black’ in the 1970s offered a way of overcoming cultural ‘differences,’ it also led to the suppression of difference in presenting a unified front against racism. ‘Black’ was forced to conceal and perpetuate a range of inequalities and tensions internal to the imagined community it drew together.” — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 151 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Democracy is undermined by both oligarchy and intersecting supremacies. — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 53; Democracy depends on recognizing politically unequal differences — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2692; Bigot rationalizations read as ideology rather than irrational personality defect — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 152 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Bigotry functions in US history as governance to control diversity and build unity #complicates (0.76) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 300
• Coalitional antiracist identity politics suppressed internal differences among the nonwhite #complicates (0.70) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 151