By Marium Zahra

Jan/Feb 25

After Sept. 11, 2001, Muslims across the country faced hate crimes and bigotry. There was an increase in racist attacks, and xenophobia against people who identified as Muslim, came from Muslim countries, or simply looked brown. 

Consequently, the years following 9/11 have been a time of distress, fear, and discrimination for Muslims. But in recent years, as blatant Islamophobic  bigotry is correctly acknowledged as socially unacceptable, this open discrimination has been transformed into microaggressions across the country, especially in school classrooms. 

Microaggressions are a form of inconspicuous discrimination. These are behaviors, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile or negative attitudes toward culturally marginalized groups. In classrooms, microaggressions can look like small jabs or pointed comments singling out the race, religion, or ethnicity of a student or a group of students. These remarks often stem from  essentializing misconceptions, presumptions, and/or stereotypes.

With the rise of Islamophobia in recent months due to the ongoing genocide in Palestine, Muslim high school students living in the West feel the effects in their everyday lives. Many no longer view school as a safe place to learn and grow. Instead, classrooms are tainted with discrete discrimination from peers and sometimes even administration and teachers. For example, Muslim students, especially women and girls across the country, deal with a condescending view of Islam that casts them as oppressed and forced by religious commandment. These stereotypes are both deeply harmful and based on incorrect, orientalist tropes. 

“My peers have made fun of me for practicing salah and for wearing the hijab, mocking my religious practices,” said Homa Massood, a senior at Skyview High School in Billings, Montana. “Some self-proclaimed ‘concerned’ teachers have openly criticized my belief system, calling practices like wearing the hijab and fasting during Ramadan ‘barbaric.’” 

Hana Haque, a senior at Folsom High School in Folsom, California said she has also been attacked with religiously-motivated actions and comments that seek to demean her faith as a Muslim woman.  

“I am more often the target of sexual or lewd comments during school,” she said. “[A male student] taller and bigger than me [grabbed] my arm as I walked by his friends and his table during lunch and [called] me ‘cute’ and [asked] for my number. I wear hijab and have never seen them before in my life. I looked visibly uncomfortable.” 

For some Muslim students, like senior Suleikha Hakim of Columbus, Ohio, academic spaces are more unforgiving when they make mistakes. Discrimination is something they have become used to. 

“I can feel how differently [students] treat me compared to others,” Hakim said. “People will act normal around other people, but when it comes to me, [they’re] harsher.” 

California sophomore Syeda Ali admitted she’s used to this treatment. “Peers and elders often make these religious jabs at me, but I’ve become desensitized,” she said. 

Ali also noted the familiar feeling of being a Muslim in America, as though you should be ashamed of your culture and religion and should feel compelled to suppress your origins to feel accepted and included. 

“I was targeted as a victim of bullying at a young age due to my appearance and identity,” she said. “Growing up, there wasn’t much I could do as. . . I was pretty much an outsider.” 

Some students said that they’ve been classified with incorrect racial categories, ethnicities, or nationalities due to stereotypical assumptions from authority figures. This type of racism, whether intentional, is a result of the ignorance that many Americans have regarding Islam and/or Muslim culture and tradition. This discrete discrimination is also primarily rooted in the way Muslims have been either misrepresented or completely ignored by mainstream media. 

“Teachers and administrators often reference me in discussions about Middle Eastern countries I’m not from, like Iran or Saudi Arabia,” said Massood. “A few have even made comments about me being from ‘the desert’.”

When school officials incorrectly generalize Muslim students, it demonstrates to other students that they can make the same ignorant or harmful assumptions, all of which contribute to making the classroom an unsafe or an unwelcoming place for Muslims.

As a Pakistani American, Muslim high school student from Texas, I know firsthand how damaging microaggressions can be, and how normalized they have become. While working on a portrait of my father in class in December of 2023, an instructor approached me and asked if I “was drawing Hussein” with no other context. At the time, I didn’t even know how to react, so I brushed it off. Later, I realized my teacher had just said the first brown name he could think of. 

Throughout ninth grade, I was threatened by school coaches during Ramadan while participating in my school’s volleyball program. On an out-of-season conditioning day, I let my coach know that I could not run because I was fasting. Instead of allowing me to sit out, he implied that if I didn’t play, some of the newer girls would take my spot.

This experience showed me that my identity as a Muslimah was not respected in my school environment. And I am far from alone in these experiences. High school students across the country say that microaggressions take a toll on both their mental health and their ability to perform in school.

“The constant mockery and disrespect made me feel isolated, misunderstood, and unwelcome in spaces that should have been supportive,” said Massood. “When Muslim students are constantly questioned or belittled for their beliefs, practices, or appearance, it sends the message that their identity is something to be scrutinized.”  

Haque agreed with this sentiment. “They repress Muslim students’ personalities and silence their voices. Muslim students won’t be as comfortable if they’re constantly attacked in school,” she said. 

While microaggressions might be brushed off as harmless by teachers, administrators, or other school officials, they should not be overlooked given their detrimental effects on Muslim students. These actions make students feel like they shouldn’t participate in class discussions, that their opinions don’t matter, or that they simply don’t belong in an American classroom. Most of all, microaggressions against school-aged Muslim Americans make students feel like outcasts in environments that should be inclusive. Worse still, silent discrimination of this kind makes students feel like they can’t respond, fight back, or stick up for themselves out of fear of facing further discrimination or being labeled as overly sensitive. 

“When I reported the incident to my teacher, rather than receiving support or intervention, I was told to ‘get thicker skin.’ This lack of support from school staff only heightened my sense of vulnerability and fear for my safety as a Muslim student,” said Massood.

Combating Microaggressions Against Muslim Students

To make matters worse, in 2024, Republican lawmakers in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and North Carolina introduced anti-diversity legislation designed to repeal protections for vulnerable groups like Muslim Americans throughout the American school and university system. Predictably, the result of this legislation was that discrimination against marginalized students increased throughout the year. Now, more than ever, we must combat microaggressions against Muslim Americans in our schools.

Educators can help by promoting diversity and inclusivity inside their classrooms instead of ignoring or suppressing racial, or religious, or ethnic differences among the student body. Educators should foster an environment where every student feels like their cultural, linguistic, and religious backgrounds are recognized, instead of ignored. 

With the recent rise of anti-Critical Race Theory laws and book bans, it is also important to allow students to have open discussions in the classroom. Students should never be silenced for speaking out about their culture. Schools should diversify the curriculum in a way that doesn’t whitewash or antagonize the history of Muslim countries or overlook the unique contributions made by Muslim Americans.  Teachers should discuss the practices and beliefs inherent to Islam while also identifying what microaggressions look like in order to reduce these occurrences and the harm they cause. Most importantly, schools should give students the ability and confidence to take action against discrimination instead of brushing off their experiences. 

“Having a classroom that places diversity and inclusivity at the foundation is paramount. Students need to know that they are valued in their classes. It makes them feel seen, heard, and safe,” explained Rebecca Prado, an educator from El Paso, Texas. 

Microaggressions against Muslim students have been prominent and normalized in classrooms for far too long. The time to end discrimination is now.

Marium Zahra is a 16-year-old independent journalist working from the Frontera in El Paso, Texas. Marium works with local magazines, nonprofits, anthologies, and organizations that protect social justice. Her work has been seen in Business Insider, Yes!, The Nation, PrismReports, Chalkbeat, The Progressive Magazine, El Paso City Magazine, and more.

The post Microaggressions Against Muslim Students Are Taking Over High School Classrooms appeared first on Islamic Horizons.

By Jimmy E. Jones 

Jan/Feb 2024

“Except his [Lut’s] wife, who we have ascertained will be of those who will lag behind.” (15:60)

The sad story of Prophet Lut’s (‘alayhi as salaam) wife appears in all of the Abrahamic scriptures. I grew up in a Black Baptist Church in Bible Belt Virginia during the 1950s and 1960s. Consequently, after I converted to Islam in the 1970s, I was reacquainted with the powerful lesson embedded in this important narrative: No matter how righteous or God-conscious your relatives are, it’s still possible for you to be so caught up in “looking back” at what displeases God that you end up “stuck” like a pillar in the problematic past.

When it comes to race relations in the Muslim American community, it seems that many African-American Muslims and their “allies” are too fixated on “looking back” at the twin American sins of slavery and segregation. Therefore, they often do not focus on the powerful positive perspective that Islam brings to this very sensitive, politically-charged issue. Consequently, many of us are so honed in on White supremacy and Black victimhood that we remain a bit stuck in a narrative that fails to move us forward. In this article, I intend to unpack both of these concepts in a way that might facilitate building a stronger, more cohesive Muslim community.

White Supremacy 

Given my life as a young Black boy growing up in the legally segregated South, I knew White supremacy quite well. Us “colored” children attended underfunded schools using books and supplies cast off by our White counterparts across town. When I encountered a White person in downtown Roanoke, Va., I knew better than to obstruct their path or get too close. 

In addition, the racially motivated brutal murder of Emmett Till on Aug. 28, 1955, was a terrifying reminder of what happens to young boys like me who dared to violate the prevailing racial norms. Even though I was only 9 years old at the time, the horrific Jet magazine open casket picture of Till’s brutalized 14-year-old body was traumatizing. The image was so powerful that it still impacts my interactions with White women almost 70 years later. 

Such was White supremacy’s nature in a state where Whites and Blacks were jailed if they intermarried. This reality lasted up until June 12, 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia banned such anti-miscegenation laws nationwide. Even though White supremacy was particularly detrimental to Black people, its negative impact also affected others.

For example, eugenics, the science of “improving the race,” became a very popular movement in the 1920s. In fact, 30+ states (led by Virginia) passed involuntary sterilization laws to rid society of “defectives” (e.g., immigrants, blind, deaf, “feeble minded”). A 1927 U.S. Supreme Court case, Buck v. Bell, involved a poor young White girl that Virginia wanted to legally sterilize. This case became a major catalyst for the eugenics movement. “Liberal” Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously stated in the court’s written opinion that “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”  

These words, and the ruling in which they were contained, led to 70,000+ forced sterilizations of the “unfit,” a practice that lasted until the 1970s. All of this was done by using the authority of various state laws. This pseudoscientific movement is meticulously documented in Edwin Black’s “The War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race” (Four Walls Eight Windows: 2003). Even liberal intellectual luminaries at Harvard, Yale and Stanford were ardent advocates of this “racial improvement” effort. 

The point here is that while “White supremacy” was a powerful negative phenomenon for Black people, it was also used to suppress and murder others. For instance, lynching is usually associated with Black repression. However, according to The Stanford Daily initially, it was actually more frequently used in the western part of the country against Mexicans before and after the Reconstruction (stanforddaily.com, May 19, 2022). 

Thus, White supremacy has always been about more than just Black and White. 

Black Victimhood 

Perhaps the most stunning outcome of the de jure segregation system that I endured during my formative years was that I never considered myself a victim. The people who nurtured me at home, in school and at the High Street Baptist Church that I attended never allowed me to focus on the fact that I was treated as a second-class citizen. Instead, they insisted that I strive to be the best I could be, no matter what the circumstances. Consequently, we all understood that excellence was the standard for every one of us young Black children. 

This refuse-to-be-a-victim attitude is in stark contrast to that of some of the Black leaders and their “allies” in the Muslim American community today, who often portray us as primarily victims of White supremacy and immigrant interlopers who adopt White supremacist attitudes. Far too little emphasis is placed on the value that we currently add to the Muslim community and the broader American society. 

Racism toward us is still a real and persistent scourge in both contexts. However, if you adopt the narrative presented by many African-American Muslim leaders and their “allies,” you would think that most Muslim “immigrants” are “anti-Black” and that most Blacks are very poor.

For a more optimistic view, consider the census data used by Eugene Robinson in his stereotype-shattering book “Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America” ‎ (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group: 2011). The data he references support the central thesis of the book’s first chapter: “Black America doesn’t live here anymore.” In the chapter, he asserts that by 2010, middle-class Black Americans had become the Black community’s largest segment. Racism is still a serious, deadly problem in this country. However, things have gotten a little better.

Facing Forward

If we Muslims want to avoid the fate of Prophet Lut’s(‘alayhi as salaam) wife, I strongly urge our community’s members to come together across ethnic boundaries in order to construct a more inclusive multicultural future for us and for all Americans by focusing on some Islamically inspired concepts that we all know quite well:

 • When it comes to the Qur’an and biology, there is no such thing as “race.” As pointed out in 4:1, all humans were created from a single being and its mate. Thus, “race” is indeed a social construct.

• Even though Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) clearly loved his people and place of birth, he never put his cultural allegiance above the shahada, which encourages Muslims to be in one mutually supportive community.

• A binary approach to solving the country’s racial issues (e.g., “You are either a racist or an anti-racist,” as per the currently popular author Ibram X. Kendi in his bestselling book “How to be an Antiracist”) will lead to even more racial animus. We should heed the lessons in the oft-quoted 49:13, that we are created as nations and tribes as a test of whether we can get to know one another.

• As witnesses for all humanity (2:143), Muslims are obliged to step up and have tough conversations around race that will lead to healing, rather than to increased bitterness and blaming (see Harlan Dalton’s “Racial Healing” [Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group: 1996] for an excellent discussion of how this might happen).

We should all take time to learn about the complex history of race relations in this country through books like Matthew Frye Jacobson’s “Whiteness of a Different Color” (Harvard University Press, 1999) or videos like the excellent three-part PBS series “Race: The Power of an Illusion” (2003).

Further, as a Muslim African American, I believe that we are better off if we focus on the value we bring to a situation, as opposed to acting like “victims” who need to be protected from “micro-aggressions” and be given “safe spaces.” Black victimhood is not the best response to White supremacy.

Jimmy E. Jones, DMin, is executive vice-president and professor of comparative religion and culture at The Islamic Seminary of America, Richardson, Texas.

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