The Chapel Hill Shootings & the Troubling Growth of Anti-Muslim Intolerance

Charles Kurzman comments on The Chapel Hill Shootings & the Troubling Growth of Anti-Muslim Intolerance.

If this turns out to be a hate crime, it would mark an ugly turn in the rise of intolerance toward Muslim-Americans. While the actions of a single individual doesn’t constitute a trend, surveys have found that Americans’ attitudes toward Muslims have grown increasingly negative in recent years. A majority still report favorable views of Muslim-Americans, but “unfavorable” responses are on the rise, driven by alarmist media reports about terrorist threats and political campaigns that treat all Muslims as untrustworthy. Survey respondents who watch Fox News or listen to talk radio regularly are 50 percent more likely than other respondents to express negative views of Muslims.

Hate crimes against Muslims have grown too. They still comprise a small fraction of all hate crimes in the U.S. — far fewer than hate crimes against Blacks, gays, and Jews, according to FBI data — but the proportion has risen from 1.8 percent in 2002-2008 to 2.4 percent since then. These figures would no doubt be higher if President George W. Bush had not visited a mosque in Washington days after 9/11, posing with Muslim leaders for photographs and expressing solidarity with Muslim-Americans. Perhaps the positive effect of that gesture is wearing off.

Emphasis Mine

This is how the ideological superstructure creates racism. The mass media and politicians continually frighten the people by creating scares.

It is good that that the majority of Americans have so far resisted this barrage of propaganda against Muslims.