Mormons were racialized as foreign, despotic, and un-American through anti-Muslim tropes.

Evidence

Referred to as an American Mahomet, Joseph Smith was vilified by Americans as licentious, duplicitous, and conniving. Protestants were especially enraged by Mormon polygamy. The practice confirmed Mormons’ foreignness and susceptibility to despotism. Orientalized depictions of Joseph Smith portrayed him as a sexually depraved despot with a large harem of women held captive under his spell. The multifamily Mormon households were likened to Turkish harems. Like “Mahometans,” Mormon polygamists were described as callous patriarchs who exploited their wives for sex and produced an inferior race of children. Protestants also believed polygamy turned women into slaves and men into brutes. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 327 (#expands, via linked claim)

In particular, Runnymede followed many other race equality or anti-racist organizations in studiously avoiding too much discussion of or focus on religion or faith. Religion, faith and belief were seen to raise a different set of issues from those relating to race and ethnicity, which might even have more in common with gender or sexual orientation than with religion. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 89 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Nineteenth-century Americans racialized Mormons through the same Orientalist lens they used on Muslims. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 327; Scientific racism framed Mormons as a biologically degenerate race — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 321; Shared ancestry did not protect Mormons from racialization as foreigners — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 322 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Nineteenth-century Americans racialized Mormons through the same Orientalist lens they used on Muslims. #expands (0.97) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 327
• Anti-racist orgs once treated religion as a separate axis from race. #complicates (0.75) — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 89