Truth to Power
This Halloween many children believe that monsters, ghosts, goblins, and other mythical creatures may make a sudden appearance in order frighten them. Fortunately, as they grow older and mature, such children will come to learn that such monsters do not in fact exist in the real world. Sadly, even among adults there looms a large fear of a mythical monster. This monster has been utilized by politicians, academics, and everyday citizens in order to frighten the masses of the people. But just who is this monster? It is the Muslim Boogeyman!
One day, as a college student I became deeply aware of just how scared folks are of this Muslim boogeyman. One day, before class, I actually heard these two white Christians badmouthing Islam—about how it was so violent and barbaric. I was just listening to their discussion for a while before I decided to but in and finally exclaim that I am Muslim. When I did, you all should have seen the scared look on their faces; you would have thought they were expecting me to blow them up or something. If I said “boo”, they were liable to have a heart attack. I told them to relax. I particularly didn’t care for the ignorant remarks about islam and they needed to chill before I discussed the violence of white Christians against black people historically.
Fear of this Muslim boogeyman was further demonstrated when armed protesters galvanized around a Mosque in Phoenix, Arizona. Protestors wrote T-shirts stating,”F%ck Islam.” Organizers passed out pamphlets stating, stating,”Our enemy, that we are taking a stance against, is the precepts of sharia law and all it entails.” When asked about why they were protesting, the organizer of the protest Jon Ritzheimer stated that he no longer wanted to live in fear and that his children deserved a future. What exactly was it that he was fearful about? The idea that “Sharia Law” would be imposed upon him and his family by Muslim Boogymen and subject him to discrimination.
Let’s be real here: The fact that they have the time and energy to protest against something which has never happened(Muslims imposing sharia law on them) nor is even remotely likely to happen, while having no history of protesting against the legacy of black codes, Jim Crow, and a variety of other eurocentric laws which they actually imposed upon black people (in the real world, not in fantasy) only shows The “Muslim Boogeyman” is utilized to white wash the continued atrocities against the non-white world and allows for a violent absolution in which the aggressor plays the victim.
Bill Maher and Mos Def: Look at who is afraid of the Muslim Boogeyman!
A prime example of the white supremacist deployment of the Muslim boogeyman to play the role of the victim occurs with television personality, Bill Maher. In an interview with African-American Muslim hip-hop artist, Mos Def, Bill Maher questioned him by stating,”The religion of Islam spread through the sword, spread through oppression. Have you read your history? What happened between 632 to 732 A.D.; 100 years they conquered the whole known world.” Before clearing up Maher’s Eurocentric distortions of history with regards to how Islam spread, the real question that brother Mos Def should have asked Bill Maher us: what happened in his European history between 1492 until the present era?
This map shows that only a few countries have been spared from European colonialism, and, as you can see, the Muslim/Arab world, Native-Americans, Australian Aboriginals, and Africans, all came under European domination. In fact, European colonialism lead to the direct destruction of several Black Muslim societies, such as the Sokoto Caliphate, kingdom of Jolof, Bornu Sultanate, Sultanate of Damagaram, and Zeila. Due to his fear of the Muslim Boogeyman, Bill Maher is now sitting on land stolen from the Native-Americans, benefiting from white privilege, and now has the audacity to question our brother Black muslim brother Mos Def as though Maher has some sort of moral high-ground.
Trump and the Muslim Boogeyman.
The Muslim boogeyman exists as a fear on right and the left-wing of American politics. The belief in the Muslim boogeyman is also one of the main reasons Donald J. Trump despite being a blatant misogynist who brags about sexually assaulting women, an individual with absolutely zero experience in politics, and a man completely uninformed of essential knowledge needed to be an effective commander in chief can become the leading republican presidential candidate. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has played into the Muslim Boogeyman by calling for a ban on Muslim immigration to the United States, when Black Muslims such as Omar Ibn Said, Bilal Muhammad, Abdurrahman Ibrahim Ibn Sori, and Ayuba Suileiman Diallo were forcibly brought to America against their will and terrorized on U.S soil. In the presidential debate, Trump called for Muslims to report when they see things going on. This Black Muslim will be keeping at ab on the blatant white supremacy at the heart of Trump’s campaign.
The Purpose of the Muslim Boogeyman.
The Muslim Boogeyman is utilized to obfuscate the fact that white supremacy is the largest geopolitical threat to world peace. If we are to truly work for a racially just world, we must eradicate this belief in the Muslim boogeyman. In seeking to create a hyperbolic threat out of Islam, it obfuscates the very real, systemic crimes of White supremacy and criminalizes Black Muslims who utilize Islam to resist the structural violence inflicted upon them by a White supremacist society.
Folks: It is time to grow up and acknowledge that the Muslim boogeyman does not exist. If Black lives mattered in America, just as there are calls for “moderate Muslims” to take a stance against extremism and work for reformation within their religion, there would be widespread and urgent pressure for White people to take a real stance on working to eradicate. White supremacist terrorism, and pressure for them to radically reform their entire societies and cultures.
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