Why Islamophobia Has Absolutely Everything to Do with Racism
Why Islamophobia Has Absolutely Everything to Do with Racism
As the creator of the satirical site Daily Racist, I can assure you that hating people of colour and hating Muslims go hand in hand
For those subscribed to the slack-bowelled shitshow that is UK politics, the latest big splash has been about the Tory MPs embroiled in whatever the word is for “hating on Muslims”.
Apparently, the former Home Secretary ‘Auntiji Tom’ Suella Braverman shrieking “the Islamists, the extremists… are in charge”, or former Prime Minister ‘Lettuce’ Liz Truss nodding in deranged approval to the notorious US Muslim-hate preacher Steve Bannon hailing the notorious British Muslim-hate preacher Tommy Robinson “a hero”, aren’t at all Islamophobic. The Prime ‘Miniature’ Rishi Sunak himself, pulled out the lectern usually reserved for national emergency announcements to screech his warning that the Islamists are indeed here to destroy us all.
Anyone with a brain that doesn’t rattle inside their head disagrees:
The one that did get admonished – for saying the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who is absolutely British but hey, he’s got a Muslim name, has handed over control of the city to his Islamist mates – is Lee Anderson. For those of you outside of Britain who haven’t heard of him, to be honest, neither should have the rest of us. He’s the thug you go to at a shit party, on the understanding he’ll score you some marching powder, who then takes your money, and you never see him again. Only thanks to Boris Johnson filling his cabinet with knuckle-draggers who propped him up the way they did him back in his Oxford rugger bugger days, Anderson became Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.
Famed for telling asylum seekers to “Fuck off back to France”, and known as ‘30p Lee’ for claiming poor people can feed their entire family for 30p a day, Anderson is a special kind of wanker. While the rest of the Tory cabinet has been hotly denying the Islamophobic things they’ve been saying aren’t Islamophobic, Anderson – who received a standing ovation by fellow Tories for his outbursts – hasn’t claimed he’s not, but instead gone to great pains to point out he’s not a racist.
If I had a brick for every time a racist who’s just said something violently racist towards Muslims uttered the words, “how can I be a racist when Islam isn’t a race?”, I’d have enough bricks to build a wall to smash my head against.
I’ll sum up my feelings towards this neanderthal of a man with this spoof page I did for the Daily Racist website:
I don’t run the Daily Racist anymore, partly due to what I call ‘over-satirisation’ (claim to shame: my now binned Facebook group was responsible for running many a fake news story, most notably the ‘Muslims hate Peppa Pig’ scandal that then got splashed across the tabloids).
I realised my attempt to parody racists only added piss to the bonfire. If just one racist believed the utterly improbable bullshit stories I was running and subsequently took that rage out on a random Muslim, then I’m part of the problem.
Over the many years that I’ve devoted as a keyboard-warrior anti-fascist activist, engaging with racists on an unhealthily regular basis, here’s how I know why Islamophobia is the banana at the top of the racism tree.
Before Islamophobia was fashionable
I won’t speak for the black community (even though many do follow Islam, because, unless they’re clad in religious clothing, are generally not fingered as Muslims), but racism in the 70s and 80s for brown-skinned people in Britain wasn’t about religion, and more about being lumped together as what’s un-affectionately termed “Pakis”. I guarantee you anyone reading this over the age of 30 – whose parents were born in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan or any Arab country in Asia – will have been called this by hate-filled racists far too many times.
Then, in the 90s, racism became briefly unfashionable. My controversial belief is this was down to the rave generation, whereby young people – who famously carry the torch of hate handed down from their prejudiced elders – were too high on ecstasy to give a shit. On countless occasions, I’ve had council estate thugs who I’d have run a mile from only a few years earlier, confess through gurning jaws how they used to hate Asians, sorry bruv, then pour their bodies into mine with a melting hug.
Not one of them ever spoke of Muslims. Just Asians as a whole.
Then, the Tories again, brought in the Criminal Justice Bill that banned free raves, leaving the capitalist superclubs and cocaine wankers in charge of clubland, alienating the poor white, black and brown kids to retreat to their own miserable, angry little corners.
The acceptable face of racism
Unless you’re an out and proud knuckle-dragger with a swastika tattooed on your head, most people don’t like to be thought as racist. So when the anti-Muslim sentiment became popularised, they channelled their racism specifically towards them.
We’ve seen homophobes do this by focussing their hate towards trans folk while still effectively being able to call non-straight men paedophiles and perverts; antisemites latching onto anti-Zionism to express how money-grabbing Jews rule the world; Brexiters pretending to stand up for the British working class while pouring bile on Eastern Europeans.
The message sent there being: we’re not racists, we simply hate these specific types of people because they are a threat to us. All the while making sure to add the old chestnuts about how some of their best friends are black, that they have a Vietnamese wife, and how they have nothing but respect for the good Doctor Patel.
It's textbook fascism. First, you eliminate one minority group. Then you move on to another, then another, and keep going in the hope of one day having their unicorn fantasies of living in a land that’s ruled exclusively by straight white men. Taliban for whites, if you will.
Racists hate everybody
In my time as a clubber, a failed actor and musician, an entertainment journalist whoring himself at media soirees, a dedicated purchaser of hard drugs, a parent who ran playgroups in three European countries, an anti-fascist campaigner, and generally a bloody lovely bloke to hang out with, I’ve had the privilege of knowing a shit-ton of people. And one thing I’ve learned about people is that the ones who aren’t racist are generally tolerant of any minority group. This isn’t to say I haven’t known of anti-racists who haven’t been sexist, transphobic, or just a bit of a cock, but broadly speaking, if your nature is to accept one group who is visibly different from you, it’s highly like you’ll be primed to accept another. It’s how tolerance works.
Racists, who I’ve known through my Daily Racist years in abundance, operate in exactly the opposite way: you’re different, and so I shall treat you as such. I’ve seen so many threads where a racist who specifies he only hates Muslims, only to find himself getting thrashed in a debate by someone of Indian origin, descend into racist bile within three posts…
Here’s a little time-wasting game you can play. Next time you come by someone on social media hating on Muslims, go on to their page. I guarantee you’ll find posts that are transphobic, sexist and entirely bigoted.
Islamophobia does what racism sets out to do
It’s no secret right-wing governments thrive on creating division, but in modern Britain, the current tray of spunkmugs that is the Tory party, knows they can’t be seen to be out-and-out racists. As the brilliant columnist Peter Oborne, himself once a Tory, points out:
“With the economy in recession, public finances a mess and the [Conservatives’] reputation for competence at rock bottom, all the evidence suggests that Sunak’s [party] will fight the election by targeting minorities – especially immigrants and, in particular, Muslim ones.”
Muslims are the racists’ latest bogeyman. And when you’re a poor, white Briton who’s being constantly told your bills are higher and your wages lower because Muslims are being housed in hotels and creaming all the benefits – with the majority of them plotting to bring sharia law and more of their kind to the nation – your vote becomes based on fear and loathing. And that, my friends, is the very essence of racism.
For those still unsure whether islamophobia still counts as racism, allow me to draw you a picture…
