Approaching the Racial Positioning of Muslims in the United States, Pre- and Post-9/11

• In Event: 384 - Regular Session. Race and Ethnicity: Racialization across Diverse Groups

Abstract

In this study, I examine how racial meaning is attributed to Muslims in the US, and what that attribution means for the positioning of Muslims within the US racial framework in order to make a theoretical contribution to the sociological literature on race and ethnicity. To do so I conduct content and discourse analysis on mainstream media representations of Islam and Muslims in newspaper articles. I sample articles from three mainstream newspapers over the period of three years before and three years after 9/11 to investigate the following research questions: How are Muslims and Islam racialized before and after 9/11? Have there been any shifts in representation during this time period? The primary finding is that Muslims are racialized as foreign to the US, and that the ways in which they are racialized as foreign depends on their “actual” race (i.e. African American, South Asian, Arab, etc).

Author

• Atiya F. Husain, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill