Thread by @EdwardECurtisIV

I am still trying to understand how the Hamline Islamic art controversy happened, and I am now wondering if there is a local gendered and racial context. Hypothesis: Hamlin Administrators and students, many of them self-identifying Black women, keep referring to 🧵

https://twitter.com/toddhgreen/status/1612105537813880834

anti-Black racism and violence in explaining why showing the image is Islamophobic.

The signifier, the decision of an instructor to show the image, was interpreted as anti-Muslim (the signified) because in the Twin Cities, anti-Muslim animus has a particular anti-Black valence.

Think of the anti-Somali, anti-Ilhan animus. It is also meaningful that this anti-Black, anti-Muslim animus in Minnesota focuses on Black women’s bodies—both at the local level but also nationally, as in the constant death threats that Rep. Omar faces.

In this context, the showing of the image is genuinely felt as an attack on the entire Muslim community, the “body” of the umma, as it is understood in this local context. It actually hurts, whether supporters of free speech wish to acknowledge that or not.

Acknowledging this hurt and encouraging dialogue while also defending the instructor, who was deeply respectful of students, was an opportunity for better community building. It still is, if @HamlineU will will try to meet the challenge.