Structural racism during 9/11 & COVID-19

“It feels like 9/11.” A Chinese friend in the United States commented to me through Zoom, a most popular digital conferencing platform in the time of the current pandemic, “I mean, after 9/11, Muslims are afraid of going out in the streets. So are we now.”

Nowadays, it is not uncommon to hear friends commenting on the societal impact of COVID-19 and likening it to 9/11 in terms of the negative impacts on the Muslim communities around the world. My research focuses on Muslim minorities in China and Islamophobia from comparative perspectives. Having closely tracked the surge of anti-Asian racism and xenophobia for over three months by far, I come to see how sudden global events like a terrorist attack or pandemic could stir up racism in structurally similar ways.

Almost two decades ago, the falling of the twin towers at the center of Manhattan shocked the world. Images of planes crashing into the buildings in New York and Washington D.C. sent a chill down the spine of many Americans as well as its Muslim communities. Many Muslims—no matter practicing or non-practicing, citizens or immigrants— suddenly felt unsafe because of race, religion, or cultural practices. They were worried that their seemingly “Middle East” physical features, brown skin colors, donning of veils, languages, or even just the simple act of carrying a backpack in the subway would invite looks of suspicion and panic.

Such fear is well captured in popular literature, films, reports, and scholar works after 9/11. For instance, a 2010 Indian Hindi film “My Name is Khan” features an Indian Muslim Rizwan Khan and his struggles against multiple levels of racism in his journey from India to the United States. The turning point in the film comes when Rizwan and his wife Mandira were watching the news with horror. Following the events, the friendly neighbors started to stop hanging out. Rizwan’s sister-in-law Haseena, a devoted Muslim and psychology professor, was physically attacked. She had to take off her headscarf to protect herself and her family. The most tragic moment happens when Mandira’s son Sameer was accidentally killed in a football playground because of uncurbed racism among teenagers. Overwhelmed by grief, Mandira blamed Rizwan’s Muslim identity and asked him never to return unless he told the President of the United States that he was not a terrorist. In the film, Rizwan finally made it. The US President in the film (featuring Barack Obama) acknowledged Rizwan’s anti-racist efforts and sent a strong message of reassurance to Muslim communities.

While the film is fictional, it deeply echoes with the entangled processes of racialization of Muslims after 9/11. By racialization, I refer to the racist policies, discourses, and sentiments toward Muslims in politics, media, and everyday life.

For instance, like what Haseena experienced with her headscarf, the practices of veiling become a controversial issue in the United States and across Europe (e.g. Bowen 2007; Fernando 2014). This gendered (mis)representation also goes for “young/single Muslim men” who are constantly suspected as “potential terrorists” in public spaces. Moreover, it is noticeable—both in the film and in real life—that anti-Muslim racism tends to flatten all ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversities of Muslim communities.

Now turning to the anti-Asian racism during COVID-19, we can find how anti-Muslim racism helps us elucidate the conundrums that Asian communities are facing daily. As we all know, Asian communities in the United States are incredibly diverse. The meaning of being Asian is constantly shifting and enriched by immigrants from all around the world. Yet the racist slurs and actions spurred by COVID-19 targets individuals and communities regardless of their nationality, ethnicity, language, or cultural practices of mask-wearing. The beating of a Singaporean young man in London, the spitting on a Chinese woman in San Francisco, the panic over seeing Asians with masks—the list could go on and on. Meanwhile, the hyper-circulation of racism speech and fake news in social media has already contributed to a 900% uptick of anti-Asian abuse in Twitter. To make things worse, President Trump has been blatantly fueling anti-Asian racism by replacing “corona” with “Chinese,” a political game of blame which is going to entrench the racist association between the virus and Asian communities. Yet, like Rizwan, I am proud to say that “Mr. President, I am a Chinese and I’m not a virus.”

References

Bowen, J. 2007. Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State and Public Space. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Mayanthi L Fernando 2014. The Republic unsettled: Muslim French and the contradictions of secularism. Durham and London: Duke University Press.