recently, i got an email from a local group trying to build an expansive progressive movement. they had just finalized their platform and wanted to share with community members. i scrolled through the two page attachment and was happy to see support for Black Lives Matter, immigrant and refugee rights, universal healthcare, a sustainable environment and economic equality, among other concerns. i was surprised that there was no mention of islamophobia. nor was the platform explicitly anti-war. i shared my worries with the group and was told that the platform was local and state focused and that the term xenophobia was used as a catch-all for islamophobia.
not only was it personally painful to be completely invisibilized by a “progressive movement” that speaks to a wide spectrum of local social justice groups, it also brought home, once again, how intersectionality is not just about chants at a rally, it’s a much more arduous process of learning and listening, of uncomfortable growth where one cannot call all the shots or design all the platforms.
not contextualizing any local/state initiative by rejecting wars and imperialism, is not just myopic but disingenuous. imperialism defines and dictates the politics against which all our struggles are foregrounded, e.g. the militarization of police is directly connected to BLM and the promotion of drone centers as jobs programs is particularly relevant in new york (the hancock drone base near syracuse is a case in point). in the same way, not naming islamophobia is to ignore that it exists at the intersection of orientalism and racism. the largest (and oldest) contingent of muslims in this country is still Black.
we should be done with the orwellian obfuscation of language, of declaring right sounding agendas without the courage of delving fully into the problems we face – not only naming them but also following the connections, wherever they may lead us.
we can’t be committed to BLM and take selfies with local police, we can’t cheer veterans talking about fighting the enemy abroad when we know that we mostly kill civlians whom we occupy, we can’t join in the national anthem when our brothers and sisters are taking the knee, we can’t “love” our country unless we acknowledge what our country is and whence it came from. this is the difficult work that needs to be done. let’s not refuse to engage.