Thread by @YousefMunayyer

In an attempt to steer this conversation around @ChelseaClinton, in the wake of an attack that killed 49 Muslims, in a useful direction, let’s talk a bit about anti-muslim racism and liberal complicity in it.

@ChelseaClinton If that makes some folks uncomfortable, I am not sorry. You will survive your discomfort but as we have learned over the last 6 months, many will not survive Islamophobia and antisemitism.

Being introspective in this moment about ways you have contributed to Islamophobia does not make you a victim, it makes you a responsible actor. We need more responsible actors in times like these.

It is convenient for liberals to point at the right but that is an incomplete reckoning at best, and a furtherance of the politicization of addressing bigotry at worst. Neither of which help.

The sole person responsible for pulling the trigger in New Zealand was the person who pulled the trigger. But the set of ideas that motivated them have been furthered by a wide range of actors across the political spectrum.

To understand how the @IlhanMN conversation, where Chelsea weighed in, played a role in furthering Islamophobia, you need to understand more about Islamophobia first.

One of the key tropes in modern Islamophobia is the incompatibility of Muslims with a made up concept called “Judeo-Christian” civilization. This is supported by a set of corollary tropes; that Muslims, particularly practicing Muslims are fascists, Nazis and Jew-haters writ large

Another is that Muslims are subversive actors, slowly creeping into American life (read Judeo-Christian civilization) for the purpose of taking it over & destroying it from within. Sure, it starts with one or two members of Congress and then next thing you know it’s Shakira Law!

With Rep. Omar’s comments, we had a situation where a member of Congress said something people found objectionable because they heard it echoing antisemitic tropes.

The words of a member of congress matter. But they are not the only things that matter.

Rep. Omar is not just a member of Congress, she is, fairly or not, a prism through which Americans will see Muslims because she is the highest and most visible Muslim-American elected official. This is an unenviable burden.

That does not mean she is immune from criticism. Rather, it merely means these dynamics must be kept in mind as criticism is made because they have a different impact at large than criticism directed at one of hundreds of white Christian male members of Congress.

But that is not what happened. Actually, the exact opposite happened. The opprobrium directed at Rep. Omar far outweighed anything directed at white Christian male colleagues who not only use words that can be mistaken for antisemitic, but that are unmistakably antisemitic.

This disparate policing of antisemitism in the discourse, which lets white male Christians (who are usually supportive of Israel) routinely off the hook for antisemitism...

while ganging up and piling on Rep. Omar reinforced the islamophobic trope that Muslims are a *unique* threat to “Judeo-Christian civilization”.

Did Chelsea Clinton contribute to that, intentionally or not? Yes, I believe she did.

Not only by weighing in as she did publicly with a significant platform and following, but also as an identifiable liberal whose political positions enabled the further marginalization of another Democrat.

Nothing allows you to be portrayed as marginal and radical in our polarized society as someone from your own end of the political spectrum calling you out.

The fact that in this moment, after the attack in NZ, some want to turn Chelsea into the victim of a college student angered in a moment of deep mourning does more to replicate these dynamics than challenge them.

I actually think the way Chelsea behaved in the moment she was confronted was a million times better than the way some of her defenders are behaving afterwards.

For many of us who understand and see how islamophobia works, we were seeing it furthered in the conversation around @IlhanMN. The shooting in NZ happened to occur right afterwards. One did not cause the other but it is why feelings were particularly raw.

Chelsea Clinton is obviously not Donald Trump, but it is crucial that liberals also wrestle with the ways in which they contribute to Islamophobia, and not deny or minimize it. This goes far beyond the conversation around Rep. Omar or just the present day.

We need to talk about the ways in which notorious Islamophobes are celebrated among Liberals. Bill Maher is exhibit A. And there are so many more.

We need to talk about the ways in which islamophobia in the service of supporting Israel is tolerated and often promoted.

We need to talk about the ways Muslims are constantly discussed in “war on terror” terms. Stop holding up Muslim war heroes as your examples of good American Muslims. Muslims, like all people, contribute to our society in a myriad of ways.

The bottom line is this, all forms of hate are intertwined. We can’t fight one if they way we are doing so reinforces another. That is what the entho-nationalists want us to do.

This requires navigating difficult conversations in a diverse society with interlocutors who have multiple and overlapping layers of identity shaped by history. It is not easy to step back and look inward, but it is necessary.

End.