Far-right and liberal racisms mutually reinforce each other on a spectrum
Evidence
The new McCarthyites do not operate in isolation from other political and social actors. Rather, there is a dialectical relationship between far-right racism and liberal racism. All these racisms sit on a spectrum with each influencing the other. While the Far Right and sections of the neoconservative camp have forwarded conspiracy theories about Muslims that are obviously and blatantly racist (such as the claim that 80 percent of mosques in the United States promote or support violence, discussed below), establishment liberals put forward arguments that are more subtle but nevertheless racist. The so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy in 2010 is a good case study of the way in which overt right-wing Islamophobia interacts with liberal Islamophobia to produce the “Muslim” as a racialized other. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 641
The new McCarthyites do not operate in isolation from other political and social actors. Rather, there is a dialectical relationship between far-right racism and liberal racism. All these racisms sit on a spectrum with each influencing the other. While the Far Right and sections of the neoconservative camp have forwarded conspiracy theories about Muslims that are obviously and blatantly racist (such as the claim that 80 percent of mosques in the United States promote or support violence, discussed below), establishment liberals put forward arguments that are more subtle but nevertheless racist. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 641
Categorization
- XREF: Builds on ch5/ch9/ch10/ch12 claims that liberal and conservative Islamophobia are mutually reinforcing imperial instruments — and models the mechanism by which representation-level debate keeps producing the other. — connects to: Neoliberals have readily allied with exclusionary and racist right-wing movements. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 24; Right-wing and liberal Islamophobia both serve imperial racism through exclusion and conditional inclusion.; Racist framing of Arabs spans both hardline and liberal camps. (+6 more)
- corroborated: 5 independent passages support this claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 641
Broader Connections
- Far-right and liberal anti-Muslim racism are dialectically coupled, not separate phenomena
#corroborates(1.00) - Anti-Muslim racism in politics spans both parties in liberal and conservative forms
#corroborates(0.90) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 743 - Liberal Islamophobia and right-wing racism are interchangeable imperial instruments
#expands(0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 544 - Liberal and conservative Islamophobia jointly enable far-right conspiracy theories
#expands(0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 721 - Both conservative and liberal approaches to Islamism rest on cultural racism
#qualifies(0.75) - New racist rhetoric lets far-right groups deny racism while demarcating Muslims
#exemplifies(0.75) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 464