Bumper sticker crit
My Kentucky Death Penalty paper is done and I'm now working on revising and polishing my Race and Law paper on Muslims and Arabs after September 11th. In doing this I've been doing a lot of reading, some of it interesting and some of it damn infuriating. Much of it has been in critical race theory which despite the name is not so much a theory but a school of thought focusing on the use of narratives and on discrimination built into race-neutral laws and social structures. Pretty reasonable on the whole, but some of its adherents seem to share the sentiment popular among critical theory folks that one must take umbrage at everything. They seem to be living the bumper sticker: if you're not outraged you're not paying attention.
My favorite over-the-top example actually deals with the topic I'm writing on, how "Muslim" and "Arab" are often treated as synonymous. First read this bit from a newspaper article:
Nine years ago, Jim Hacking was in training to be a Jesuit priest. Now he is an admiralty lawyer in St. Louis who has spent much of the last month explaining Islam at interfaith gatherings. Mr Hacking's search began in the 12-step program Overeaters Anonymous and intensified when he befriended an Egyptian-born woman, Armany Ragab, at the law review at St. Louis University. He made the Shahadah on June 6, 1998, and proposed marriage to her the next day. This summer, the couple traveled to Mecca.
Now think of what if anything you might find objectionable about that. Anything? Not for me. But here's the analysis by Suad Joseph, Benjamin D'Harlingue, and Alvin Ka Hin Wong:
Wilgoren appears content to conclude that Amany Ragab is Muslim simply by asserting that she is "Egyptian born." This narrative effaces the identity of the over 15 percent of Egyptians who are Coptic Christian. Additionally, it seems to assume that his "befriending" an Egyptian-born woman is an adequate explanation for why he would convert to Islam. It implies a sexual seduction of white men by racialized Muslim women. . . . The creation of the category, the seductive Muslim woman, is a homogenizing move that imagines Muslims and Arabs as the same. By conjuring the image of Arab women spreading Islam though sexual relations, it evokes the sexualized and racialized hierarchy of American cultural politics.
The article proceeds like this for 20+ pages, picking apart mostly undeserving quotes from The New York Times. There are a few quotes of real interest, but not many.
And yet a lot of the stuff I've been reading (most in a different book of essays) has been very reasonable and interesting. Maybe it's true that if you aren't outraged you aren't paying attention. But it doesn't follow that if you are outraged you must be paying attention.
My favorite over-the-top example actually deals with the topic I'm writing on, how "Muslim" and "Arab" are often treated as synonymous. First read this bit from a newspaper article:
Nine years ago, Jim Hacking was in training to be a Jesuit priest. Now he is an admiralty lawyer in St. Louis who has spent much of the last month explaining Islam at interfaith gatherings. Mr Hacking's search began in the 12-step program Overeaters Anonymous and intensified when he befriended an Egyptian-born woman, Armany Ragab, at the law review at St. Louis University. He made the Shahadah on June 6, 1998, and proposed marriage to her the next day. This summer, the couple traveled to Mecca.
Now think of what if anything you might find objectionable about that. Anything? Not for me. But here's the analysis by Suad Joseph, Benjamin D'Harlingue, and Alvin Ka Hin Wong:
Wilgoren appears content to conclude that Amany Ragab is Muslim simply by asserting that she is "Egyptian born." This narrative effaces the identity of the over 15 percent of Egyptians who are Coptic Christian. Additionally, it seems to assume that his "befriending" an Egyptian-born woman is an adequate explanation for why he would convert to Islam. It implies a sexual seduction of white men by racialized Muslim women. . . . The creation of the category, the seductive Muslim woman, is a homogenizing move that imagines Muslims and Arabs as the same. By conjuring the image of Arab women spreading Islam though sexual relations, it evokes the sexualized and racialized hierarchy of American cultural politics.
The article proceeds like this for 20+ pages, picking apart mostly undeserving quotes from The New York Times. There are a few quotes of real interest, but not many.
And yet a lot of the stuff I've been reading (most in a different book of essays) has been very reasonable and interesting. Maybe it's true that if you aren't outraged you aren't paying attention. But it doesn't follow that if you are outraged you must be paying attention.