In American Muslim Poll: Amid Pandemic and Protest, the Islamophobia Index was recorded mere months before an election where the incumbent was widely seen as fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment as an electoral strategy, both with rhetoric and administration policies like the Muslim Ban. Most notable among our results is the consistent decline in Islamophobia among Jewish Americans from 22 in 2018 to 18 in 2019 to 16 in 2020.
2022
In the American Muslim Poll 2022: A Politics and Pandemic Status Report, for the fourth year, we measured the Islamophobia Index, a measure of the level of public endorsement of five negative stereotypes associated with Muslims in America. The general public scored 25 (on a scale of 0 to 100), on par with 27 in 2020. American Muslims scored 26 on the Islamophobia Index, higher than Jewish Americans who scored the lowest at 17.
Muslims score 20 on the Islamophobia Index? What kind of self-hating 5th dimensional logic is this?
Further analysis reveals that higher Islamophobia Index scores among Muslims are driven primarily by Muslims who identify as ‘white.’ In 2020, white Muslims showed increased Islamophobia with a score of 27, followed by an even larger increase in 2022 with a score of 40, significantly higher than white Evangelicals (30). Further research is needed to explain why there has been such a large increase in Islamophobia among white Muslims.
Endorsing negative stereotypes about one’s own community is referred to as internalized oppression, or internalized bigotry or racism in the case of a racial group. It is worth noting that, compared with older Muslims, internalized Islamophobia is more prevalent among younger Muslims, who have lived the majority of their lives after 9/11/2001, in a country that has demonized their identity in popular culture, news media, political rhetoric, and in policy. Research suggests that this kind of steady drumbeat of bigoted ideas and state actions have a detrimental impact on the target group’s self-image and mental health.
Another noteworthy and alarming finding were the disproportionately negative views among white Muslims, who are also the most likely to report experiencing ‘regular’ religious discrimination. Some studies on internalized racism have surprisingly found that endorsing negative stereotypes about one’s own group is associated with a higher locus of control. This suggests that internalized prejudice may actually be a defense mechanism against the trauma of bigotry at the hands of the dominant group by agreeing with those in power but believing one has the choice (locus of control) to not be like those tropes. More research is needed to fully understand the why and how of internalized Islamophobia.
As a mostly white American Muslim born in 97 I can say this is exactly what happened to me. I went through a (mercifully short) Islamophobic phase in late high school after being fed one too many stories by Western media of my people being senseless savages. It didn’t help that my relationship with that side of my family was always, shall we say, tenuous, and at that time sharply declining. Internalized racism is a hell of a drug, I had some pretty nasty self deprecating jokes. Which is ironic considering how much I hated and even fought people for shit they would say in grade school.
Checks out to a T, all the American Jewish people I’ve known have been very cool, Israelis are a different story of course.
Protestants/Evangelicals (spot 6 differences) were always the ones telling me I was a terrorist going to hell and that all the hijabis we bomb got what they deserve.
Jew here ( not amerikkkan by the way , just your Sephardic neighbor ) .
I can say with all do respect and with full confidence that I never had any negative impressions of arabs in my life . Arabs are the most beautiful , lovely , kind and friendly people I have ever met in my life . They are very humble and nice and from what I have seen from them is that they are very respectful people . ☺️
