Majorities of Americans endorsed profiling Muslims even while viewing Islam favorably
Evidence
When he said he would register Muslims during his campaign, he was met with outrage from a large segment of the American public. However, in the years before Trump, the American public had not protested the surveillance of Muslims that had been ongoing under both the Bush and Obama administrations. According to a 2010 Gallup Poll survey, 71 percent of Americans supported profiling individuals who fit a terrorist profile based on age, gender, and ethnicity (Jones 2010). While this profile of a terrorist did not mention religion, another poll conducted by Quinnipiac University in 2012 found that 58 percent of registered New Yorkers felt that the NYPD had done nothing wrong to Muslims, even after it had been criticized for its extensive surveillance of Muslims (Boyette 2012). According to the survey, 54 percent of respondents claimed they held a positive view of Islam and 65 percent said mainstream Islam was a religion of peace, yet 58 percent still felt surveilling Muslims was an acceptable practice. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 82
Categorization
- SEED: The tension between holding positive views of Islam yet endorsing surveillance is a sharp, counterintuitive data point that could anchor a piece on how abstract tolerance coexists with concrete profiling.
- recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
- XREF: connects to: Majorities of both Republican and Democratic voters supported the Muslim ban — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 507; Nearly half of Americans believed Islam encourages violence in 2010 — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 565; Substantial minorities of Americans endorse curtailing Muslim civil liberties — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 756 (+6 more)
Broader Connections
- Personal contact with Muslims predicts more favorable attitudes toward them
#corroborates(0.30) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 400