Empirical accuracy is beside the point in both phobic and philic portraits of Muslims

Evidence

Islamophilic discourse returns consistently to this array of features, which are found, in varying degrees of completeness, in millions of real Muslims. Of course, these traits are lacking in millions of real Muslims as well, but it is not their empirical presence or absence that matters as much as the moral connotations these traits carry when they are used to define the modern, safe, and acceptable Muslim. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 704

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The symmetry claim — both love and fear of a group operate on connotation rather than verification — is the chapter’s load-bearing insight and resists one-line summary.