Only Muslim violence is read as caused by the perpetrators’ religion

Evidence

Looking at Christianity’s brutal history today, one might well advance an argument that all Catholics are bloodthirsty fanatics. Indeed, this logic would be analogous to the argument that Islam is inherently violent and that Muslims have a “predisposition” toward violence. Yet such a generalization is unthinkable. To my knowledge, no mainstream newspaper or magazine has drawn a straight line between the birth of Christ and various acts of terrorism committed by Christian fundamentalists. Furthermore, as Asad argues, the same people who call the actions of suicide bombers unjustified legitimize US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands. In short, within this ideology only the violence of certain groups, Muslims, is highlighted and coded as a product of those groups’ religious affinity. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 366

Looking at Christianity’s brutal history today, one might well advance an argument that all Catholics are bloodthirsty fanatics. Indeed, this logic would be analogous to the argument that Islam is inherently violent and that Muslims have a “predisposition” toward violence. Yet such a generalization is unthinkable. To my knowledge, no mainstream newspaper or magazine has drawn a straight line between the birth of Christ and various acts of terrorism committed by Christian fundamentalists. Furthermore, as Asad argues, the same people who call the actions of suicide bombers unjustified legitimize US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands. In short, within this ideology only the violence of certain groups, Muslims, is highlighted and coded as a product of those groups’ religious affinity. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 366

Categorization

• XREF: Directly advances the reader’s MOC thread by showing attribution-to-religion is itself the ideology’s core move, which bears on whether the standing apparatus is content-agnostic. — connects to: Christian violence is never generalized to all Christians, but Muslim violence is. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 354; Islamophobic ideology selectively attributes violence to religion only in the Muslim case. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 354; Terrorism is labeled by religion only when the perpetrators are Muslim. — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 553 (+8 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 366

Broader Connections

• Terrorism is labeled by religion only when the perpetrators are Muslim. #corroborates (0.95) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 553
• Christian violence is individualized while Muslim violence is collectivized. #corroborates (0.90) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 185
• The media codes only certain groups’ violence as religiously motivated #corroborates (0.88) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 198
• Violence by one Muslim is generalized to all while Christian violence is not #expands (0.85) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 54
• Counter-radicalization conflates perpetrators’ religion with causes of terrorism. #expands (0.85) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 946
• Religion gets invoked to explain violence committed by a tiny Muslim minority #expands (0.82) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 261
• Clash of civilizations framing located terrorism’s cause within Islam itself #expands (0.82) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 266
• Radicalization is theorized as an exclusively Muslim phenomenon #expands (0.80) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 377
• Even secular Muslims are held morally responsible for attacks by co-religionists #expands (0.78) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 285