Supernova
IB Veteran
- Messages
- 730
- Reaction score
- 31
- Gender
- Male
- Religion
- Islam
I'm kinda tired of having to both defend against people who are racist against Arabs and Muslims from Islamaphobes online, who say we are terrorists, backwards, close-minded, racists etc, while on the other hand every so often having to hear Muslims with bigoted attitudes, that they don't even recognise as being bigoted.
For example, once at work a Pakistani guy said that he would never get married to a non-Pakistani, and he was totally oblivious to how racist his comment was, even when I spelt it out to him. He just couldn't get it. Plus he was telling this to me, a non-Pakistani, lol.
On another occasion (and I am soooo sorry for constantly mentioning nationalities in this topic, but I am just trying to illustrate a point) my Palestinian American colleague was talking about his wife (she's a Palestinian born and raised in Jordan) who made a casual comment about how shocked she was that their White European neighbour, I think a British or Aussie convert, could get married to a Somali girl. If I remember correctly she said something like 'How could they get married. He is so white and she is so black'. Both of us, who have grown up in the West were just baffled with the casual racism (and colorism) that easily slips out of the mouths of people around us, and from all nationalities. We are in the UAE btw.
Now I know for a fact, not all Muslims are racist, and I like to think that the majority of us are not (at least in my circle of friends), but we do seem to be diseased community with this issue, and no one ever likes to talk about it, without getting defensive.
Rant done.
Firstly the question is phrased wrongly as you cannot blanket the entire Ummah for racism.
A better way of asking it would have been "Does racism exist within the Ummah"
The short answer is yes.
Your annotation about the Pakistani example is also an incorrect (very common might I add) between Race Identity & National Identity.
Example: Asian is a race group. Pakistani is a Nationality. Before Pakistan was created what was the RACE of those people residing in Pakistan now? They were regarded Asian.
So your question and your example doesn't go hand in hand. The example you giving within your question is one of Nationality NOT Race. In the same way a persons RACE cannot be Nigerian. His nationality is Nigerian but his Race is African.
So the problem is actually worse than you think- not only has many Muslims become Racist, but also have become Nationalistic.
It has a place in Islam for identification, but thats where it starts and stops.
Hope i clarified the issue.