Stop Using Sexism to Justify Racism

Here’s a fresh idea: stop dehumanizing Muslims with falsely progressive views.

Photo by john crozier on Unsplash

A couple of months ago, I found out one of my friends is an islamophobe. It came up in a casual conversation over some beers, and he probably didn’t think much of it. His reasoning had all the common elements of the European far-right, especially the lack of integration of Muslim communities and their supposed unpatriotism.

“You know, all these things you’re about, of feminism and equal rights to minorities, don’t mean anything to Muslims,” he finished defending his posture after a while.

The strange thing is, he doesn’t consider what he said to be racist. I bet he really believes it was even somehow progressive.

I understand the background he comes from and how mainly having studied and worked with defense and counterterrorism he has been indoctrinated to see the Muslim as an enemy.

But what is really worrying to me about it is that he doesn’t understand how he is contributing to a world where Muslims are terrorized, attacked and even put in concentration camps.

Using a supposed defense of women to defend racist views is the oldest trick in the islamophobe manual. Muslim men are oversexualized and painted as dangerous to…