Skip to main content

Home/ Ed Webb Religion & Politics Seminars/ Group items matching "opinion,analysis" in title, tags, annotations or url

Group items matching
in title, tags, annotations or url

Sort By: Relevance | Date Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Ed Webb

Liberal Islamophobia: Anti-Muslim hostility is not just a conservative phenomenon | Middle East Eye - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...servative-phenomenon-105761593

US USA media politics Islam Muslims violence terrorism Islamophobia

shared by Ed Webb on 22 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • it would be wrong to view Islamophobia as a strictly conservative phenomenon. Polling data indicate that 49 percent of Democrats hold unfavourable views of Islam. Also, Brookings Institution scholar Shadi Hamid has argued that US President Barack Obama, a Democrat, holds views that amount to “Islamic exceptionalism”. Hamid argues that Obama’s statements about Muslims suggest that he is “frustrated by Islam” and that he has bought into Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis
  • American news media, including liberal outlets, have done a poor job contextualising stories about Muslims and Islam. A growing body of empirical research into American news media coverage of Islam reveals deeply problematic patterns - negative, stereotypical portrayals, almost no Muslim sources, and few mention of Muslims or Islam in the context of positive news. That American news outlets apply the “terrorism” description almost exclusively to Muslim-perpetrated violence cannot be lost on anyone paying attention
  • while denunciations of terrorism by Muslim groups generally go unreported, Islamophobic statements drive news narratives
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • the CIA estimates that there are around 30,000 Muslim jihadists in the entire world. A Kurdish leader has suggested that the CIA underestimates the jihadist threat, and claims that the total number is closer to 200,000. Even assuming the larger figure, jihadists represent a grand total of 0.01 percent of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims
  • A 2011 Gallup poll found that American Muslims were the least likely of all polled American religious groups to accept vigilante violence against civilians. In all, 26 percent of American Protestants, 27 percent of Catholics, 22 percent of Jews, 19 percent of Mormons, 23 percent of atheists, but just 11 percent percent of Muslims said that it is “sometimes justified” for an “individual person or a small group of persons to target and kill civilians”.
  • Glaringly absent from American news media are opinion polls showing that Muslims are no more likely to accept violence than other groups. For instance, a 2011 Gallup World Violence poll showed that Muslims were just as likely as non-Muslims to reject vigilante acts of violence against civilians
  • Media scholar Jack Shaheen carried out a content analysis of more than 900 Hollywood movies featuring Arab or Muslim characters. Shaheen found Muslim characters are almost never cast in positive or neutral roles. The overwhelming majority of films that feature Arab or Muslim characters cast them as enemies, terrorists, violent, savage or backwards
  • compared to other threats of violence, Muslim terrorism garners exaggerated attention in American news and politics.
  • In the 14 years since 1 January, 2002, Muslim terrorists have killed 45 Americans in the United States, a smaller number than right-wing conservative terrorists have killed during the same time period. Also, since the start of 2002, there have been more than 200,000 firearm-related homicides in the United States
  • More realistic, proportionate presentations would greatly improve American political life. However, given the extent to which the Islamophobia industry is funded, people shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for fairer, less sensational presentations.
Ed Webb

Guardian Reader's Editor evades key questions in column on Joshua Treviño debacle | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...-column-joshua-trevino-debacle

media newspapers hate racism Islamophobia israelpalestine opinion analysis

shared by Ed Webb on 28 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Of course a newspaper should offer a broad range of views and host vigorous debate among people who disagree. The point that neither Elliott nor Guardian editors have addressed is where to draw the line. We live at a moment when open hate speech – especially in the United States – primarily directed against Muslims, is becoming normalized as part of the ‘marketplace of ideas.’
  • If all things being equal, Treviño’s long history of bigotry had been directed against Jews instead of Muslims, Arabs and Palestine solidarity activists, would The Guardian have offered him a column in the first place? If it had been revealed that Treviño wrote speeches for candidates suggesting that “civilization” was at war with Jewish rather than Muslim “barbarism,” how many would defend Treviño or the initial decision to hire him?
  • Ed Webb on 28 Aug 12
     
    Is Mr Abunimah correct that hate speech against Muslims is becoming normalized?
Ed Webb

Why the Reaction Is Different When the Terrorist Is White - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - 1 views

www.theatlantic.com/...260849

US USA analysis politics terrorism minorities Islamophobia law opinion

shared by Ed Webb on 08 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • It ought to be self-evident that non-Muslims perpetrate terrorist attacks, and that a vanishingly small percentage of Muslims are terrorists, but those two truths aren't widely appreciated in America.
  • you don't want to wind up in a class of people whose rights are determined by the Office of Legal Counsel
  • Having flattened so many laws (and a good many innocents) in pursuit of the terrorist, the American majority is naturally loath to focus its attention on a terrorist who looks, talks, and dresses as they do. It is particularly uncomfortable for those in the country who feel most reflexively safe when "an American" is beside them on a plane, instead of a bearded man with a turban.
« First ‹ Previous 41 - 60 of 90 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page