james_davis_nicoll | Given open antisemitism is mainstream again in the US

Anti-Jewish prejudice is anti-semitism.

Anti-Roma prejudice is anti-ziganism.

Is there a word for anti-Muslim prejudice? I am tired of racists being able to say "Muslim isn't a RACE" and thereby de-rail efforts to point out their prejudice.

"Islamophobia" but the usual response is either "it's rational to fear and hate Muslims because they're all murdering raping scum who want to kill us all" or "you're trying to smear legitimate critique of a religion as something analogous to racism".

Yeah, and anything with the -phobia stem is subject to clobber-verse-style "disputes" in the form of "phobia means FEAR and I'm not AFRAID of them; I don't like them for legitimate reasons!"

There should be a category like non-white/POC for non-Christians who are hated by white supremacist terrorists: Jews, Muslims, and presumably also Hindus (especially the nationalists).*

* No, I have no idea if Buddhists are hated in this context or if Buddhism is a religion but I'm guessing right-wing Christian hate preachers claim Buddhists are hated by the Christian god and are going to hell too.

Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs are a subset of Muslims in the White Nationalist classification system.

You mean seriously or they just classify all non-christian religions under the one the dislike the most?

That second one.

They don't generally class Jews as Muslims, despite being non-Christian.

We get our own category.

My boss is Indian. I've heard people call him a terrorist, a Muslim, and tell him to go back to the Middle East, either directly or behind his back. And when informed of the error, they say, "There's no difference."

When you wrote classification system, I thought you meant in the ideology, not in the day to day beliefs of people.

Also, on an individual level they often think Sikhs are Muslim. I just came from an rally against hate (which is not something we should need to have), and one of the speakers was a Sikh man who had been followed around a store last week by someone yelling anti-Muslim insults at him.

Well, non-Christian works, but I prefer to define people by what they are, rather than what they aren't. That whole "I am normal; everyone else is different" center-of-the-universe thing.

Yes, I agree with you and try to practice that in most contexts but in this context the people who're being targetted are successful non-assimilationists, whether "racial" assimilation into whiteness or religious assimilation into one particular brand of western Chistianity. I dunno. We work with what we have. :-/

Include atheists?

Also, I'm not sure what the best term would be Neo-Pagans, Wiccans, and the like.

Edited 2016-11-21 18:47 (UTC)

I dunno? My instinct is not because atheism is hypothetically not a religion but it's certainly an alternative belief system... and [pretend I made an intelligent comment about Buddhism as atheism/religion].

My instinct is that Jews and Muslims are specifically targetted because they've proved especially resistant to Christian assimilation in western cultures.

There's a good bit of prejudice against atheists. It hasn't been invoked strongly recently, but it could be.

The newer sorts of Paganism have run into prejudice-- it was a long fight to get pentacles allowed on graves at Arlington, and there have been issues with child custody.

Prejudice against atheists doesn't make the news, but it's there under the surface. Public opinion polls show that people distrust atheists more than any religious group. And any atheist who's ever lived around evangelicals knows to give noncommittal answers any time religion comes up.

Yes, as I said, anyone who successfully resists assimilation into the right-wing-Borg could be targetted for that, which is why, alas, there are already multiple categories of bigotry defined: misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ablism, anti-Semitism, anti-zyganism, Islamophobia, &c ad nauseam.

james-nicoll's question, as I understood it is whether to roll all these into two categories (gender and "race"+religion) or record separate categories. As differing prejudices come and go I personally think it's more practically useful to record the current major targets of hate-crimes by category.

I'm not sure that's why Jews have been targeted. Jews have in various periods made great attempts at assimilation that have been rejected by Christian societies (see wealthy Sephardic Jews in 18th-century England, for example). It seems to me more like the other way around: Jews have not completely assimilated because of constantly being targeted.

Edited to add: I think Jews have been targeted historically because we're a minority, and thus easy to beat up on without the fear of a mass uprising, and because Christianity needed to go out of its way to define itself against Judaism to begin with, thus setting the precedent of stoking that animosity.

Edited 2016-11-22 05:46 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's why Jews have been targeted. Jews have in various periods made great attempts at assimilation that have been rejected by Christian societies (see wealthy Sephardic Jews in 18th-century England, for example). It seems to me more like the other way around: Jews have not completely assimilated because of constantly being targeted.

In the comment you're replying to I said: "My instinct is that Jews and Muslims are specifically targetted because they've proved especially resistant to Christian assimilation in western cultures."

So you appear to be saying that you don't think Jews have been targetted for not converting to Christianity? Except your eta seems not to be saying that? As far as I can see we're in agreement. Possibly you misread my previous comment that you're replying to as saying [something else but idek what]?

Note: it's very easy to misread in established threads on emotive subjects, which is why I'm double-checking with you on whether I've understood you.

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vschanoes.livejournal.com - 2016-11-22 14:35 (UTC) - Expand

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spiralsheep.livejournal.com - 2016-11-22 17:36 (UTC) - Expand

"My instinct is that Jews and Muslims are specifically targetted because they've proved especially resistant to Christian assimilation in western cultures."

Possibly, but anti-Semitism in Western culture pre-dates Christianity. The blood libel itself was first propagated by with an Graeco-Egyptian named Apion, who claimed that Jews sacrificed Greek Gentiles in their temple.

Back when Christianity was nothing more than a minor Jewish sect, pagan Roman authors also accused early Christians of sacrificing children and engaging in cannibalism, blood-drinking and incest.

The Roman emperor Hadrian went on an anti-Jewish warpath in the first century in response to the failed Jewish rebellion against the Roman Empire. The temple was destroyed and circumcision, studying the Torah, and observing the Sabbath were all banned on pain of death, though that was later amended to allowing Jews to worship as they wished if they paid a tax.

The Romans' anti-Jewish feelings were no doubt heightened by the Jews' refusal to assimilate, though. Both Jews and early Christians refused to honor the Roman pantheon or worship any of the deified Roman emperors.

"bigotry" might be a useful catch-all, and covers sexism too.

"Bigot" has already been declared a verbum non grata equal to "racist" in talking about the right wing, open to charges of "you're the real ____ because you brought it up."

Also, one sometimes wants to be specific, not general.

I usually think of the word for anti-Muslim prejudice as 'islamophobia'.

See previous. We aren't allowed to use "homophobia" or "transphobia" any more because they nitpick that they aren't scared, just disapproving.

(Presumably the sarcasm tags up there are visible?)