.... What I am asserting is that Islamophobia is already defined in the public mind as a lame version of "racist" or “anti-Semite.” The shock value of the term as an undesirable label is now lost. Many opinion leaders view it as a technique to not deal with criticism or a dodge the issues that they are concerned with. In other words the term is ineffective and politicized.
The civil rights movement, Jewish activism and other minority groups’ successes have a lot to teach us. However as Muslims in the west with all our unique attributes including our multicultural, multi-ethnic and our various internal religious groupings it is clear that we need custom tailored approaches that focus on listening to and getting to know the “other,” dissipating hate, discrediting at a substantive level misinformation and allowing non-Muslims to easily recognize fear-mongering. [altmuslim] Read more
