RACIAL VIOLENCE AND THE POLITICS OF NATIONAL BELONGING: THE WISCONSIN SHOOTINGS, ISLAMOPHOBIA AND THE WAR ON TERRORIZED BODIES

Abstract

This paper argues that the Oak Creek Gurdwara shootings in Wisconsin, USA, cannot be understood outside the context of the history of racial violence in the US, nor that of the contemporary remaking of religio-racial politics in the global War on Terror. Critiquing liberalist framings of such violence as grounded in the personal biographies and inter-personal bigotry of individual perpetrators, I draw attention to the criticality of such violence in instantiating religio-racial difference. The paper ends with a discussion of how such violence remains deeply institutionalized within the structures of the nation-state and sustains the reproduction of white supremacy.

Notes

Kaur, Valarie. Sikhs deserve the dignity of being a statistic. The Washington Post, August 16, 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/sikhs-deserve-the-dignity-of-being-a-statistic/2012/08/16/1af99360-e7dc-11e1-8487-64e4b2a79ba8_blog.html (accessed September 24, 2012); Sethi, Arjun. Sikhs’ inclusiveness is lesson in fighting bigotry. The Washington Post Opinion, August 8, 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sikhs-inclusiveness-is-lesson-in-fighting-bigotry/2012/08/08/75c1b22a-e172-11e1-a25e-15067bb31849_story.html (accessed September 24, 2012); and Prashad, Vijay. The Sense of White Supremacy. CounterPunch, August 6, 2012. http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/06/the-sense-of-white-supremacy/ (accessed September 24, 2012).

The Sikh Coalition and the Sikh American Legal and Defense and Education Fund were among the first organizations to call for the FBI to define and track violence against Sikhs as hate crimes. See Kaur, Valarie. Sikhs deserve the dignity of being a statistic. The Washington Post, August 16, 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/sikhs-deserve-the-dignity-of-being-a-statistic/2012/08/16/1af99360-e7dc-11e1-8487-64e4b2a79ba8_blog.html (accessed September 24, 2012).

See Fernandez, Belen. Neo-Nazis, gangs and criminals in the US military. Al Jazeera, August 16, 2012. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/2012813114351987126.html (accessed August 16, 2012).

The report goes on to state:

Leaders of the white supremacist movement view enlistment as a means of preparation for a domestic race war. Aside from general combat training, job perks include access to a laboratory of Iraqis an others susceptible to dehumanising brutalisation as well as opportunities to mail AK47s and related items to the US. (Belen 2012).

Sperber, Elliot. Mass murder and the new economy. CounterPunch. http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/10/mass-murders-and-the-new-economy/ (accessed September 24, 2012).