Sympathetic multicultural TV portrayals can still legitimate racist counterterrorism policies.
Evidence
In this notion of color blindness, racial inequality persists by “still resorting to exclusionism and scapegoating when politically necessary, still invoking the supposed superiority of ‘mainstream’ (aka white) values, and cheerfully maintaining that equality has been largely achieved.” Within this new racial formation that Jodi Melamed calls “neoliberal multiculturalism” and that Eduardo Bonilla-Silva calls “color-blind racism,” “racism constantly appears as disappearing according to conventional race categories, even as it takes on new forms that can signify as nonracial or even antiracist.” These new antiracist forms are aptly apparent when Guantanamo Bay prisoners are provided with copies of the Qur’an and time to pray as evidence of the cultural sensitivity of their captors; or when the USA PATRIOT Act contains a section that condemns discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans. Such gestures attempt to subvert the focus from the violation of civil and human rights in favor of highlighting multiculturalism and racial sensitivity. The emergence of sympathetic representations of Arabs, Muslims, Arab Americans, and Muslim Americans similarly deflects attention from the persistence of racist policies and practices post-9/11. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 92 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Sympathetic multicultural portrayals can still legitimate racist policies — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 374; Fictional TV portrayals of Islam shaped actual US and UK counterterrorism programs.; Liberal multicultural TV can legitimate the security state as much as overtly racist shows (+15 more)
Broader Connections
- Multicultural TV representation serves as cover for legitimizing racist state policies
#corroborates(0.95) - Sympathetic media portrayals can mask ongoing racist policy
#corroborates(0.93) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 92 - Liberal multicultural TV can legitimate the security state as much as overtly racist shows
#corroborates(0.92) - Anti-racist TV narratives can still endorse the suspicion they supposedly rebut
#expands(0.90) - Seemingly anti-stereotypical TV portrayals legitimize racist policies
#corroborates(0.90) - Sympathetic media portrayals can help justify racism during crises.
#corroborates(0.90) - Seemingly progressive TV diversity can legitimize racist policies and torture
#expands(0.88) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 134 - Anti-racist surface messaging in media can still legitimize torture of Muslims.
#expands(0.87) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 769 - TV dramas can avoid stereotyping yet still legitimize real-world torture policies
#expands(0.86) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 291 - Sympathetic TV portrayals can still legitimize suspicion of all Arabs as threats
#exemplifies(0.85) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 495 - Sympathetic media portrayals can legitimize racism by denying it operates
#expands(0.85) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 98 - Positive media portrayals of the enemy sustain racist policies by projecting benevolence
#expands(0.82) - Television uses token complexity to mask ongoing Muslim stereotyping
#expands(0.80) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 529 - Diverse human portrayals on television may still fail against entrenched prejudice
#qualifies(0.78) - Progressively-framed European institutions can still reproduce the racism they disavow.
#exemplifies(0.75) — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 754