[Week 5] Mechanisms of Anti-Arab Racism in US Empire

Leslie Do
ASA 2, Professor Valverde
Josh Watkins, Section: A01
October 18th, 2015

Mechanisms of Anti-Arab Racism in US Empire

Socio-historical theories based on the experiences of Asian American populations also reveal systemic patterns of anti-Arab racism embedded in US imperialist empire.  In his essay "Empire of Death and Civic Violence," Hamamoto theorizes that the increase of militarism in a society's culture during wartime also escalates trends of racialized serial murders (Hamamoto, 282, 2003.) Using case studies of American serial killers (formerly US soldiers) and their Asian American, female victims, Dr. Hamamoto postulates that historical forces also determine the serial killers' type of victims and that the victims' ethnicity aligns with the ethnicity of the US's wartime enemies (Hamamoto, 282-284, 2003.) Therefore, applying Hamamoto's theory to anti-Arab racism in America and US state-sanctioned Islamaphobia in relation to the Iraq War, I argue that the murders of three Muslims in Chapel Hill, North Carolina are a part of a movement of aggressive American patriotism against Muslims and Arabs (Sullivan, 2015.) With the hegemonic reinforcement of the dehumanization of Iraqis and Muslims in American popular culture, killings of Muslims and Arab Americans in the US are rising due to an increasingly militarized US society that promotes the murders of innocent Iraqi civilians in the Iraq War. 

Question

How do we undo the casual relationship between the militarization of US popular culture and the rise of racialized murders? 

References 

Sullivan, K., Berman, M., & Kaplan, S. (2015, February 11). Three Muslims killed in shooting near UNC; police, family argue over motive​. Retrieved October 19, 2015.

Hamamoto, D. (2003). Empire of Death and Civic Violence. In C. Boggs (Ed.), Masters of war: Militarism and blowback in the era of American empire (pp. 282-284). New York, New York: Routledge.

Connection Between Domestic Killings of Muslims and US Occupation of Iraq: "3 Muslim Students Killed by Atheist"