On Islamophobia, a Miseducated Left Will Aid and Abet the Right

A little while ago Greens4RacialJustice, an arm of the Green Party of the United States' Coordinated Campaign Committee, did a webinar on Combating Islamophobia. I've submitted a comment on the G4RJ site and Green Facebook groups, and now share it here:

I'm concerned about some seriously wrong information that was imparted a few weeks ago during the webinar about combating Islamophobia. The webinar leader said one should never use the term "Islamist," and that this is just a "euphemism" employed by people who don't want to say "Muslim."

I was so taken aback by this incredible statement that I didn't know what to say in the moment and, being conflict-averse and not too good at cutting in, said nothing at the time. But the fact is this statement was seriously miseducational and could jeopardize both our work in combating Islamophobia, and our ability to recruit people from the Muslim community.

Roughly speaking, "Islamist" is to "Muslim" as, in this country, "Religious Right" is to "Christian." It's synonymous with Muslim supremacist, and calling it a euphemism for Muslim is just as wrong-headed as calling Religious Right a euphemism for Christian.

In fact, many Muslims have been actively engaged in combating Islamism from what they consider an authentically Islamic standpoint, and would probably be quite insulted that a group such as ours is saying their religion is synonymous with it.

Further, they correctly point out (in this statement, for instance: http://www.prlog.org/12645136-muslims-for-progressive-values-accuses-act-for-america-of-supporting-islamist-agenda.html) that by making this false equation, we are actually aiding and abetting the Islamophobes. Hate groups like Stop Islamization of America advance their agenda by telling people who don't know better that all Muslims support the Islamist agenda and that this is inherent in the religion. By saying essentially the same thing from the other side, we would be doing the alt-right's propaganda work for them.

The Daily Pennsylvanian Needs Some Education About Due Process

An article appearing in yesterday's Daily Pennsylvanian (to which I'll link once it's posted on line), titled "A look at Penn's sexual assault investigation policies," suggests that, at my alma mater, student journalists are now worse than administrators when it comes to understanding due process issues. I wrote them as follows:

Dear editor:

I'm perturbed by your failure to follow the good example set by Penn administrators when it comes to the language used in writing about sexual assault investigations.

You write, "Harley's office uses the word 'complainant' to describe people who reported the incident of sexual harassment or violence and 'respondent' to identify the person the complaint was against." Wrong. They use the word "complainant" to describe someone who alleges an incident of sexual harassment or violence. Your use of "report" and the definite article implies all complaints are of real incidents, disregarding the presumption of innocence. This wrong-headed usage is repeated throughout the article.

The administrators' choice of words reflects at least a degree of respect for due process. Yours should too.

_The Pulse_ Gets It Wrong on #Gamergate

WHYY's The Pulse aired a show today about nerds, which is good. One of the segments relied on Brianna Wu for information about #Gamergate, which isn't. I submitted the following comment on their Facebook page:

Great that you've done an episode on nerds. But you shouldn't have relied on Brianna Wu for information on #Gamergate -- she's very much an interested party and has been a major part of the disinformation campaign about this movement, which feminist scholar Christina Hoff Sommers has described as "a consumer uprising" against unethical and authoritarian practices in video game journalism and criticism. (You can hear her discuss it at length here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e_jTwA_rg0) Contrary to the disinformation, Gamergaters are video gamers from all walks of life and of all genders, ethnicities, and political persuasions. They've received just as much harassment on line as opponents of #Gamergate, and quantitative studies have shown that tweets associated with the hashtag are no more likely to be abusive than tweets are overall. A particularly common form of abuse is anti-Gamergaters' "silencing" female, POC, and GBT Gamergaters by accusing them of not being who they say they are. A group of GGers targeted by this kind of abuse put together a video in response: "Giving Voice to the Voiceless: The #NotYourShield Project": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzwGIHUCtjU

P.S. I had occasion to mention this piece in an interview appearing in the December 2017 issue of One Step Away, Philadelphia's street paper. I wrote, "I was proud of myself this year for achieving the degree of freedom from social anxiety sufficient to write a piece correcting misinformation about #Gamergate, even though many people I know might look askance at it."