“Yes, Islam is disrespected. That will only change when throngs of passionate Muslims show up for rallies against terrorism, and when rabble-rousers trying to gin up a riot over a defiled Koran can’t get the time of day.”
Jeff Jacoby comments on the anti-US protests provoked by Newsweek‘s report, claiming they show that Muslims have a particular propensity to violence.
Juan Cole replies: “Jacoby’s position is pure bigotry. We have to be clear about this. Anti-muslimism is a form of racial prejudice no different from any other. If Jacoby said, ‘What is wrong with those people of African descent, that they are so violent all the time when nobody else is?’ he’d probably be fired. It is not all right for him to do the same thing to Muslims. While Muslims are a religious group, in the contemporary United States they most often are racialized. It comes to the same thing.”