Religious freedom protections remain racially constrained for Muslims

Evidence

However, what most Americans have not been taught in school or fail to recognize in the sustained Islamophobic coverage of the War on Terror is that the full panoply of religious freedom rights continues to be racially constrained. Thus, Muslims have been racialized by having their religion reframed as a violent political ideology. Just as enslaved Africans’ religions (including Islam) were not considered legitimate on account of their imputed status as savages and inferiors, Muslims’ religion is not really religion according to the post-9/11 Islamophobic narrative. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 808

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The structural claim — that ‘religious freedom’ rights are allocated by race such that a religion can be reclassified out of protected status — is a dense, paradigm-shifting argument.
• XREF: Parallel to how enslaved Africans’ religions were delegitimized by imputed status — same logic as status-based exclusion of commodities and peoples elsewhere. — connects to: Minority religions exercising the same rights are routinely excluded from schools — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 870; NSW law denied Muslims race protection absent linkage to a specific ethnic origin — Mareike Riedel, Islamophobia, Racial Discrimination…, 50; White supremacist groups receive civil-liberty protections denied to Muslims. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 606 (+1 more)