The FBI treated black Islam as a political sign regardless of actual loyalty

Evidence

Reda Shata learned firsthand why it doesn’t pay to associate with the law enforcement establishment. He worked with the FBI and the police, inviting officers to his mosque for breakfast and even dining with Mayor Bloomberg. He personified everything that American imperialism has defined as a “good Muslim.” Yet an undercover police officer and an informant were assigned to spy on him and to keep tabs on his mosque. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 586 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

According to several law enforcement officials who attended an August 2016 lecture by Sebastian Gorka on Islam and Muslims, FBI agents who were present were disturbed to hear a racist diatribe from Gorka against Muslims during what was supposed to be a counterterrorism presentation. Gorka apparently told attendees at the Joint Terrorism Operations Course—an introductory-level class for participants in the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF)—that “all Muslims adhere to Sharia law” and that, furthermore, law enforcement officials should be aware that there is “no such thing as ‘mainstream Muslims.’” — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 293 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Preemptive FBI strategy assumed Muslims were guilty and induced latent terrorist tendencies. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 568; FBI discipline of black religion proceeded through profiling and cataloging; African American Muslims used imagined foreign ties politically but never committed genuine treason (+7 more)

Related

• Even Muslims who cooperated with the FBI were placed under surveillance (similarity 0.86)
• Fear of black Muslims uniting with colonized peoples drove FBI surveillance. (similarity 0.86)
• The FBI conflated Black Muslim anti-racism with sedition and imperialism critique (similarity 0.85)
• FBI required mosques to preach a state-sanctioned version of Islam (similarity 0.83)
• The FBI designated orthodoxy by political loyalty rather than theology (similarity 0.83)
• The FBI surveilled black Muslims as seditious threats more than white Arab immigrants (similarity 0.83)
• Gorka taught FBI counterterrorism agents that all Muslims adhere to Sharia law (similarity 0.82)
• The FBI treated Black Muslims’ political Islam as a national security threat for decades. (similarity 0.81)
• The FBI surveilled the Moorish Science Temple for anti-imperialist and anti-racist activism (similarity 0.81)
• The FBI treated black Muslims advocating racial equality as a seditious internal threat. (similarity 0.79)
• Black Muslims were FBI-targeted for Islamic practice voicing anti-imperial resistance. (similarity 0.79)
• FBI discipline of black religion proceeded through profiling and cataloging (similarity 0.79)
• The 2011 Libya war triggered FBI interviews of Libyan US residents domestically (similarity 0.78)
• Preemptive FBI strategy assumed Muslims were guilty and induced latent terrorist tendencies. (similarity 0.78)
• Even high-ranking Muslim American officials were surveilled without criminal cause (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The US government manufactured Islamophobia as a disciplinary technique against black political activism #expands (0.80)
• Even Muslims who cooperated with the FBI were placed under surveillance #exemplifies (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 586
• Gorka taught FBI counterterrorism agents that all Muslims adhere to Sharia law #expands (0.70) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 293
• The 2011 Libya war triggered FBI interviews of Libyan US residents domestically #exemplifies (0.65) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 491
• African American Muslims used imagined foreign ties politically but never committed genuine treason #complicates (0.60)
• The FBI secretly placed tracking devices on cars of ordinary young American Muslims #exemplifies (0.50) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 768