During a discussion on Islamophobia in the Republican Party with MSNBC anchor Ayman Mohyeldin Sunday, conversation shifted to Islamophobia on the Left.
Summarizing an article by Khaled Beydoun, the author of American Islamophobia, Mohyeldin said, “there's Islamophobia on the rise among the liberals in what is called liberal Islamophobia saying it was more insidious than right wing bigotry." Mohyeldin asked Beydoun to elaborate on the topic.
Beydoun explained that “it's dangerous to sort of caricature Islamophobia as something specifically coming from the Right." Instead, according to Beydoun, it is possible to see the same stereotypes on the Right as on the Left. In particular, he cited Bill Maher and how he has “engaged in spewing the same sort of, you know, harmful, vile illustrations of Islam and Muslims”.
What explains the rise of intolerance on the Left? Here, Beydoun argued that “what’s happening on the Right is in some respects emboldening the rise and emergence of Islamophobia on the Left. The correlation, I think, is really critical”. The conclusion was that even when liberals are racist, it’s because a Republican was racist first.
A full transcript of the June 3 conversation can be found below:
5:35 PM ET
AYMAN MOHYELDIN: And, interestingly, to that point Khaled that Sabrina brought up about this becoming more mainstream, I know that you recently wrote an article for "The Guardian" and it actually has a really interesting point to it which is that there's Islamophobia on the rise among the liberals in what is called liberal Islamophobia saying it was more insidious than right wing bigotry. Why do you say that?
KHALED BEYDOUN: Yeah. I think, you know, above all, it's dangerous to sort of caricature Islamophobia as something specifically coming from the Right. I mean, it's more explicit, you know, it’s more brazen on the Right with politicians like Trump and with personalities like Roseanne, but it's also present on the Left. I think you see some of the same stereotypes, you see some of the same simplistic sort of assessments coming from really popular, celebrated figures on the Left. Bill Maher comes to mind. On his television show, he's engaged in spewing the same sort of, you know, harmful, vile illustrations of Islam and Muslims as being this, you know, monolithic, you know, ‘demonous’ sort of element. So I think what’s happening on the Right is in some respects emboldening the rise and emergence of Islamophobia on the Left. The correlation, I think, is really critical.
