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There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives- Audre Lorde

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Learning Goals:

  • Understand how prejudice against religion and prejudice against race become similar concepts

  • Understanding cultural racism in context, being able to define the concept of racialization

  • Understand what it means to be a Muslim and a woman, and how being both affects her status in society 

  • Learn about the stereotypes about Muslims in three different countries and the violence that they face because of those stereotypes

  • Think about why people tend to be fearful of religions that are different from their own and question their reactions to these differences.

Hello everyone!

 

The purpose of this syllabus is to examine how religion becomes treated like a race, with the focus of this ‘racialization’ being Islam in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. The reason these countries were chosen was because of the recent increase in anti-immigrant, anti-Islam emotions in them, in addition to the recent terror attacks that occurred in France in 2015 and 2016. As these feelings only increase with the Syrian civil war and resulting refugee crisis and with the threat of ISIS ever present, it is important to notice and think about people’s thoughts about and reactions to Muslims around them.

 

In order to realize how racism and prejudice against a religion, in this case Islam, become similar concepts, this syllabus first discusses theory to think about how western civilizations do not take the time or effort to thoroughly investigate or understand a culture or religion prior to making assumptions and spreading information or propaganda. The first step to fixing a problem is by admitting that there is a problem. So the point of the theory in this section of the syllabus is to open up another point of view that you might not have thought about before. Also, the theory and the syllabus in general is here to help provide you with the words to explain concepts that you might have lacked the language to express.

 

To continue broadening horizons, the syllabus then moves on to intersectionally ( how different identities overlap ex. A poor, black, lesbian woman), with the hopes that you will be able to connect with the following sections of misogyny (hatred of women) and Islamophobia (fear, hatred, and violence against Muslims) and be able to understand how stereotypes about Islam affect the difference in the ways that Muslim men and women are treated in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.

 

With these concepts in mind, we move on to the country specific weeks, with the goals of examining the stereotypes about Muslims and understanding their status (especially the status of Muslim women) in each respective society. In addition to those goals, focusing on the specific countries presents an opportunity to think about why people tend to be fearful of religions that are different from their own and question their reactions to these differences.This is especially important given the context that all three nations felt moral obligations to ‘liberate’ Muslim women from oppression, which they then used to wage their new-age holy wars in the Middle East. The irony in the fact that they mistreat and oppress the Muslims that now live in their countries after they fled the violence in their countries of origin…

 

Afterwards, we think about the continuous importance of this topic as we look at Donald Trump’s call for a registry of all Muslims in the United States (which is the same thing that Hitler did to the Jews before the Holocaust), and the media’s ignoring of Muslim cultural leaders from around the world denouncing ISIS through demonstrations.

 

We don’t plan on ending on a negative note though! The end of the syllabus is filled with positive representations of Muslims in entertainment, the media, and fashion industries. And if you’d like more things to read about this topic, we’ve provided you with a set of additional sources to look at! We hope you find this informative, enlightening, and enjoyable (in the sense that you were able to enjoy learning).~

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