Voting to belong: the inevitability of systemic Islamophobia

ABSTRACT

In this article, I connect Muslim American voting practices to the ‘good Muslim’ trope. Tracing participation of members of Islamic Representative Organizations (IRO’s) in election cycles from 2000 to 2016, I argue that elections have been a site for Muslim Americans to negotiate a sense of belonging in the U.S. My research reveals deep cynicism about the transformative potential of elections and a sense that systemic Islamophobia (i.e. militarism and surveillance) were perceived as inevitable. IRO members opted instead to vote as a way to articulate the presence of Muslims in the U.S.; for instance, Muslims ought to ‘make a statement’ by voting against Donald Trump or for the first woman candidate. In this way, voting can be understood as an articulation of a ‘good Muslim’ subjectivity through which IRO members seek legitimacy within, rather than a dismantling of, an Islamophobic milieu.

KEYWORDS:

• Islamophobia
• voting
• systemic racism
• inclusion
• elections
• diversity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I use the term IRO to denote the fact that these organizations engage in representational work. In other words, they craft images of U.S. Muslims to present to the state, the media, and the public. In this way, the term encompasses advocacy groups, cultural and religious organizations.

2. I draw a distinction between attitudinal and systemic Islamophobia. By ‘attitudinal’ Islamophobia, I refer to the types of anti-Muslim sentiment that rest in people’s assumptions about Islam and Muslims, anti-Muslim tropes in media, and suspicion about a Muslim infiltration of Western culture. By ‘systemic’ Islamophobia, I refer to geopolitical practices of violence and dispossession of Muslims via processes of military intervention, deprivation of legal rights, and systematic impoverishment.

3. Muslim American engagement with the Bernie Sanders campaign is beyond the scope of this article. Briefly, it is noteworthy that Sanders did capture significant Muslim and Arab American voting bases; yet in my fieldwork I found that many IRO members did not feel Sanders was a ‘realistic’ candidate. Many felt Clinton had far more establishment credentials and was thus more suited for office.