How Race is an Issue in the World

Literature Review
This literature review examines the problem of racism and bigotry that continues to exist, not just in the U.S. but all over the world. As nationalism is surging in places like the U.S., the UK, Hungary, Italy, Russia and China, the problem of race and immigration has reared its head on a global stage. Some groups have tried to rise above instances of racism—and one group in particular is the Muslim population in the West: it experienced persecution in the wake of 9/11 (Sheridan, 2006). However, many in the Muslim population tried to extend a helping hand to the West by assisting the fight against terrorism (Mantri, 2011). By looking at how a marginalized and oppressed people set aside race and dedicated themselves to the aims of the nation that accepted them a new perspective on race and a greater appreciation of how racism can be transcended may be achieved. However, to understand the issue of race globally today, it is important to examine how researchers have understood it thus far.
The context of globalization is important to understand, first of all, because globalization has changed the nature of the way identity is constructed. Globalization is defined by Robertson (2015) as “the process whereby polities, economies, institutions and actors at all levels of society become increasingly connected across national borders” (p. 4). As more and more people become connected across borders, the very idea of having borders has become to seem foolish and old-fashioned to some—particularly to young persons. Today, many young people embrace the idea of open borders (Burridge, 2010). They interact with people of different cultures every day, whether in person, using social media, leaving comments on posts on Facebook or YouTube or Twitter. Their methods of communication have made it possible to make friendships with people the world over. There are so many different ways for people to appreciate one another and to share information, all made possible by communication technology that the world does seem like one big community at this point to many people (Burridge, 2010). For this reason, the idea of stopping immigration seems an offensive idea: they do not view immigrants as bad but rather as new friends.
However, others have a much different take on immigration. They view the world as full of dangerous characters who cannot be trusted—especially people who are of a different race or ethnicity than that of the Caucasian Westerner. 9/11 really impacted many in the West in terms of how they viewed race. Suddenly Westerners felt vulnerable for the first time in a long time, and many mainstream media outlets gave them a race of people upon whom they could project their fears and newly risen hatred—the Muslim population. Abdelkraim (2002) shows that following 9/11 there was a tremendous wave of violence by Westerners against people who were believed to be Islamic: “there were well over 1,000 reported hate incidents and hate crimes, including murders, arson, vandalism, physical and verbal assaults, and telephoned threats” (p. 83). Some of these assaults ended in loss of life: “a Muslim man of Pakistani origin was shot dead in Texas, while an Indian Sikh gas station attendant who may have been mistaken for a Muslim was gunned down in Mesa, Arizona” (Abdelkraim, 2002, p. 83). The fact that one of the victims was an Indian Sikh shows the irrationality and ignorance behind these attacks. Racism brings out the worst in people.
Yet even the marginalized and oppressed population can find ways to rise above. Mantri (2011) notes that the Muslim population in the U.S., for instance, sought to work with government agencies to help provide information on terror cells. Many in the Muslim community were as outraged by the terrorists as others in the U.S. were: they no more condoned radical Islamic terrorism than anyone else. Just because they were Muslim themselves did not mean they thought it was okay to murder innocent people. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) responded to 9/11 by stating:
“We condemn in the strongest terms possible what are apparently vicious and cowardly acts of terrorism against innocent civilians. We join with all Americans in calling for the swift apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators. No cause could ever be assisted by such immoral acts. All members of the Muslim community are asked to offer whatever help they can to the victims and their families. Muslim medical professionals should go to the scenes of the attacks to offer aid and comfort to the victims” (Abdelkarim, 2002, p. 84).
This call to Muslims in the U.S. to offer support to victims of the terrorist attack even as members of their own community were being reviled showed that this marginalized and oppressed population was willing to ignore the battery of accusations and assaults from those moved to hatred and racism. CAIR wanted to show that Muslims were humane people too. Yet it was not easy for the Muslim community to be accepted in the post-9/11 world—not just in the U.S. but everywhere. Europe too was faced with the question of race after the wars in the Middle East decimated nations and triggered waves of immigration. Islamaphobia became a major problem because Islam was a culture that the West had long had a contentious history with—going back a thousand years (Inglehart & Norris, 2003).
Islamaphobia is just one example of how race has become an issue in the West. Yet is an important one because it has impacted so many countries in the West following the wars in the Middle East that have led to mass immigration: millions of immigrants have sought refuge in Europe, and some European nations are now trying to deal with the repercussions. In Germany, Hungary, England, and Italy there have been political opponents of the open borders policy of the EU. They view the two different races as having cultural differences and they fear their own Western culture being lost in the wave of so many Islamic immigrants who bring a Middle Eastern culture. Inglehart and Norris (2003) argue that culture plays a part in the differences between the West and the Muslim nations. They also show that “according to a new survey, Muslims and their Western counterparts want democracy, yet they are worlds apart when it comes to attitudes toward divorce, abortion, gender equality, and gay rights—which may not bode well for democracy’s future in the Middle East” (Inglehart & Norris, 2003, p. 63). As the researchers show, the culture is what drives the differences in outlook and worldview between the West and the Middle-Eastern populations. This difference can lead to racism and hostility, especially in the post-9/11 world, as Sheridan (2006) shows.
The problem of racist fears in today’s globalized society was made more pronounced in the wake of 9/11. Haddad (2001) provides an assessment of what life was like for Muslims in the U.S. before 9/11 and shows that the population, while not outright persecuted, was somewhat marginalized: the Muslims “have mostly lived on the margins” of the nation’s “political life,” Haddad (2001, p. 91). Haddad (2001) also showed that there is a high degree of “ethnic diversity” within their Muslim communities and that their own political experiences were basically few and limited. That is the reason the Muslim people in the U.S. had so little “political integration” in the U.S. prior to 9/11 (Haddad, 2001, p. 91). Today, there more Muslims in Congress—and one in particular, Rep. Ilhan Omar, has raised attention for calling out the Israeli lobby in the U.S. So this is a new development—Muslims becoming more integrated in Western politics; however, Haddad (2001) shows that the teaming up of the “Zionist lobby and the Christian Right” has still led to the marginalization of Muslims in the U.S.—and this can be seen in the case of Rep. Omar, too, as she was attacked by both the Left and the Right for criticizing Israel and AIPAC. Haddad (2001) also shows that “a coalition of Arab-American and Muslim political action groups” actually promoted the Bush-Cheney ticket in the 2000 presidential election and thus aided in the Bush’s victory (p. 91). This support is certainly ironic considering that Bush was soon waging war against Arabs in the Middle East not long thereafter.
Even more interesting is that the leading nation in the West—the U.S.—is a nation that was built by immigration. People from all over the world came to America to turn it into the country of diverse people that it is today. Chinese immigrants came over to the U.S. in the 19th century and went to work in the mines and on the railroads, laying track and working in less than ideal conditions. The Chinese like the Muslim population today was marginalized and oppressed by law: they were not seen as equal citizens. The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed because of a xenophobic and racist belief system that was rampant in America. The Chinese Exclusion Act excluded the Chinese from enjoying the rights of being American citizens and socially-speaking it reinforced negatives attitudes towards the Chinese. It set “the groundwork for other racially motivated laws that followed” (Hafetz, 2012, p. 628) such as the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 that legally acknowledged the separate but equal policy.
The Asian community has always been viewed with suspicion in America, however; even during WW2 this population was forced into humiliation when the Asian community was order into a concentration camp on the West Coast by Executive Order, after Japan and the U.S. went to war with one another (Austin, 2004). Today, Asians are more accepted in American society; however, there is still some prejudice, especially towards China, as the American President has demonstrated recently by launching a trade war against China. The Asian population has never been well-represented in American politics.
In conclusion, there is much that this literature review has shown about the problem of race in the world now that globalization has changed many features of society. Globalization has made it so that many people are open to the ideas of welcoming foreigners into their country. They see the world as one big neighborhood. Advancements in technology and the ability to communicate and spread information has made this possible. They are able to see people from other cultures and races, hear their stories and make friends. They are open to them and they see the idea of having open borders as a worthwhile one (Burridge, 2010). Others do not share their enthusiasm. They see immigrants as suspicious people of dubious background: not only are they of a race that has been associated with crime, terror and violence, but they come from a culture that is not Western and therefore has different values (Inglehart & Norris, 2003). Thus, there is a motive for people to look with fear upon immigrants of different races—whether they are Latino, Asian or Middle Eastern. They see globalization as a threat to their own way of life, their own culture, and their own values. Globalization to them is not a good thing because it means more people are moving about undermining the culture and society and civilization that has been built up over centuries in their native lands. The people of Germany, like the people of England, like people in the U.S. or in Italy or in Russia or China all have the same like-minded sense about nationhood, culture and identity. They want their people to pass on their culture to the next generation and they do not want their way of life to be disrupted by outsiders. And yet many of these nations were made by immigrants way back in time. The reality of the situation is thus very complex and cannot be easily disentangled. Nonetheless, some populations that have experienced marginalization and oppression want to still to turn the other cheek and offer their assistance to the people in their host country (Abdelkarim, 2002). They want to be united to these people and not seen as a threat.


References
Abdelkarim, R. Z. (2002). American Muslims and 9/11: A community looks back... and
to the future. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 21(7), 82.
Austin, A. (2004). From Concentration Camp to Campus. Chicago, IL: University of
Illinois Press.
Burridge, A. (2010). Youth on the line and the No Borders movement. Children's
Geographies, 8(4), 401-411.
Haddad, Y. (2001). Muslims in U.S. politics: Recognized and integrated, or seduced
and abandoned? SAIS Review, 21(2), 91-102.
Hafetz, J. (2012). Immigration and national security law: Converging approaches to
state power, individual rights, and judicial review. ILSA Journal of International and Comparative Law, 18(3):628.
Inglehart, R., & Norris, P. (2003). The true clash of civilizations. Foreign Policy, 135,
63-70.
Mantri, G. (2011). Homegrown Terrorism. Harvard International Review, 33(1), 88-104.
Robertson, A. (2015). Media and politics in a globalizing world. John Wiley & Sons.
Sheridan, L. (2006). Islamophobia pre- and post-September 11th, 2001. Journal of
Interpersonal Violence, 21(3), 317-336.