Using phrases like “American Taliban” or invoking the term “sharia law” to attack the ruling of Christians on the court is all the rage after the recent Roe v. Wade decision. Once again, we have people—primarily liberal white people—engaging in racist, Islamophobic tropes. Muslim activists, scholars, and researchers have repeatedly pointed out this racism and Islamophobia for years, apparently to no avail. This needs to stop.
Islam isn’t the problem. It’s Christianity. The six judges who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade aren’t Muslim. They’re Christian. All are Catholic, although Neil Gorsuch is a Catholic turned Episcopalian. The oppression in America is home-grown Christianity. It’s as American as apple pie.
Christian conservatives and fundamentalists champion the anti-abortion movement in the United States. Stop demonizing Muslims and making them the boogeyman. They are not props to be used as scapegoats for American problems. The United States has shown itself quite often throughout history it can be an extraordinarily regressive country all on its own.
Associate professor Nazia Kazi at Stockton University points out it “reflects this assumption that Muslim women are uniquely oppressed and that American or western women are remarkably liberated.” She continued, “From both the American common sense public imagination, right on up to the seats of power, there’s this impulse to externalize that which actually is endemic to the US itself.”
Drop the ignorant, racist dog whistle and confront the real culprit: American Christianity. Stop denigrating Muslims by outsourcing American problems.