European veil bans rest on cultural racism casting Islam as premodern

Evidence

Multiculturalism, which promotes respect for cultural and religious practices, has created a situation, various conservatives and liberals have argued, where medieval norms are subverting European modernity. To counter this, the public has been won to banning veils and other symbols of Islam from public life. Muslims are accused of being anti-modern if they fail to take off their veils or if they take offense at hate speech (which is defended as free speech). The demands on Muslim immigrants to integrate bolsters a form of cultural racism that casts Europe as liberal and modern in opposition to Islam, which is seen as premodern. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 313

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Richly supports the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ article — the frame that modesty panics map onto cultural/racial hierarchies, here showing modern European veil bans as a racialized iteration of the same dynamic.
• XREF: Connects to the moral-panic framing in the reader’s notes on how collective fears reshape group behavior — multiculturalism-rejection as a manufactured moral panic over ‘medieval’ Islam. — connects to: Europe denies its racism by recasting racial exclusion as class cultural or religious problems — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 946; Anti-Muslim racism has no unbroken historical continuity from medieval to modern forms; Anti-Muslim discrimination is justified by invidious reference to Muslim cultural practices — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 108 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Europe denies its racism by recasting racial exclusion as class cultural or religious problems #qualifies (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 946
• Anti-Muslim racism has shifted from bodies to culture while keeping an essentialist logic #expands (0.82) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 156
• Anti-Muslim discrimination is justified by invidious reference to Muslim cultural practices #corroborates (0.80) — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 108
• Labeling Muslims as premodern licenses intervention without evidence of harm #expands (0.80) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 291
• European multiculturalism backlash revitalized anti-Muslim racism as cultural racism #expands (0.78) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 313
• Anti-Muslim racism has no unbroken historical continuity from medieval to modern forms #qualifies (0.75)
• Muslims were racialized through cultural signifiers rather than phenotype alone #expands (0.75) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 106
• Muslims wear a ‘racial uniform’ imposed by racialized notions of Islam #expands (0.72) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 932