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AMERICA, ISLAM, AND CONSTITUTIONALISM: MUSLIM AMERICAN POVERTY AND THE MOUNTING POLICE STATE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2017

Khaled A. Beydoun
Khaled A. Beydoun*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Law at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law; Affiliated Faculty, University of California, Berkeley Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project
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Extract

Intersectionality alone cannot bring invisible bodies into view. Mere words won't change the way that some people—the less-visible members of political constituencies—must continue to wait for leaders, decision-makers and others to see their struggles.

—Kimberlé Crenshaw1
Hamtramck is a city that occupies many intersections. Geographically, it is approximately two square miles, swallowed entirely by the city of Detroit. Racially and religiously, Hamtramck is at the latter end of a pivotal crossroads. The city of roughly 22,000 people was once a concentrated and celebrated Polish enclave, a coveted destination for immigrants from the Eastern European nation seeking safe haven and economic opportunity. Today, a declining number of Polish businesses, and a statue of Pope John Paul II on the corner of Joseph Campau and Belmont Streets, commemorating his 1987 visit, symbolize the city's proud Polish and Catholic heritage.2 Taking in the sights and sounds of the city today quickly reveals that Hamtramck, however, is no longer predominantly Polish, but rather a destination and hub for Muslims pursuing the American Dream while heavily steeped in their native traditions.

Keywords

Islamophobiaradicalizationcounterterrorismcountering violent extremism
Type
STATE OF THE FIELD ESSAYS
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , November 2016 , pp. 279 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 2017 

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References

1 Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Why Intersectionality Can't Wait,” Washington Post, September 24, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/09/24/why-intersectionality-cant-wait.

2 For a video of the pope's September 19, 1987, visit to Hamtramck, “Pope John Paul II - 1987 Visit to Hamtramck MI [part 01],” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXtiRaudQ_k.

3 All-American Muslim, a reality show based in Dearborn, Michigan, that featured families and characters predominantly from the Lebanese Shiite Muslim community, aired on TLC from November 2011 to January 2012.

4 Abraham, Nabeel, Howell, Sally, and Shyrock, Andrew, eds., Arab Detroit 9/11: Life in the Terror Decade (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

5 Jabal, Amaney and Naber, Nadine, eds., Race and Arab Americans before and after 9/11: From Invisible Citizens to Invisible Subjects (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

6 Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “In the First Majority-Muslim City, Residents Tense about Its Future,” Washington Post, September 21, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/for-the-first-majority-muslim-us-city-residents-tense-about-its-future/2015/11/21/45d0ea96-8a24-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html.

7 Beydoun, Khaled A., “Between Indigence, Islamophobia, and Erasure: Poor and Muslim in ‘War on Terror’ America,” California Law Review 104, no. 6 (2016)Google Scholar.

8 Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism,” August 30, 2011, http://www.people-press.org/2011/08/30/muslim-americans-no-signs-of-growth-in-alienation-or-support-for-extremism/.

9 Khaled Beydoun, “Poor and Muslim in ‘War on Terror’ America,” Islamic Monthly (May 25, 2015), http://theislamicmonthly.com/poor-and-muslim-in-war-on-terror-america/.

10 Volpp, Leti, “The Citizen and the Terrorist,” UCLA Law Review 49, no. 5 (2002): 1586 Google Scholar.

11 Roy, Olivier, “Islamic Terrorist Radicalisation in Europe,” in European Islam: Challenges for Society and Public Policy, ed. Amghar, Samir et al. (Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies, 2007), 55 Google Scholar.

12 For a legal history and analysis of how black identity is disassociated from Muslim identity, see Beydoun, Khaled, “Antebellum Islam,” Howard Law Journal 58, no. 1 (2014): 171–81Google Scholar.

13 Diouf, Sylviane, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (New York: New York University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

14 Austin, Allan D., African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles (New York: Routledge, 1997)Google Scholar.

15 Turner, Richard Brent, Islam in the African-American Experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

16 “Countering Violent Extremism,” Department of Homeland Security, last published July 6, 2016, http://www.dhs.gov/topic/countering-violent-extremism. “[T]he radicalization process so described not to—and frequently does not—culminate in mobilization to engage in terrorist violence. The radicalized subject is not a terrorist, but rather someone who may be predisposed to regard terrorist violence as religiously sanctioned.” Rascoff, Samuel J., “Establishing Official Islam? The Law and Strategy of Counter-Radicalization,” Stanford Law Review 64, no. 1 (2012): 141 Google Scholar.

17 Aziz, Sahar, “Policing Terrorists in the Community,” Harvard National Security Journal 5, no. 1 (2014): 164 Google Scholar.

18 Roy, “Islamic Terrorist Radicalisation in Europe,” 58.

19 Rascoff, “Establishing Official Islam?” 127.

20 Akbar, Amna, “Policing ‘Radicalization,’” UC Irvine Law Review 3, no. 4 (2013): 814 Google Scholar.

21 Ibid., 820.

22 Akbar, Amna, “National Security's Broken Windows,” UCLA Law Review 62, no. 4 (2015): 838 Google Scholar.

23 “Stop-and-Frisk Data,” New York Civil Liberties Union (2015), accessed November 2, 2016, http://www.nyclu.org/content/stop-and-frisk-data [https://perma.cc/R5NQ-8NHB, March 1, 2016]; see Floyd v. City of New York, 959 F. Supp. 2d 540 (2013) (holding that Stop-and-Frisk violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of black and Latino residents, who were disproportionately affected by the program).

24 “Under ‘knock and talk,’ police go to people's residences, with or without probable cause, and knock on the door to obtain plain views of the interior of the house, to question the residents, to seek consent to search, and/or to arrest without a warrant, often based on what they discover during the ‘knock and talk.’ When combined with such other exceptions to the warrant requirement as ‘plain view,’ consent, and search incident to arrest, ‘knock and talk’ is a powerful investigative technique.” Bradley, Craig M., “‘Knock and Talk’ and the Fourth Amendment,” Indiana Law Journal 84, no. 4 (2009): 1099 Google Scholar.

25 “Factsheet: The NYPD Muslim Surveillance Program,” American Civil Liberties Union, accessed October 24, 2016, https://www.aclu.org/factsheet-nypd-muslim-surveillance-program.

26 Elizabeth Dunbar, “Comparing the Somali Experience in Minnesota to Other Immigrant Groups,” MPR News, January 22, 2010, http://www.mprnews.org/story/2010/01/25/comparing-the-somali-experience-in-minnesota-to-other-immigrant-groups-of-immigrants-

27 Dina Temple-Raston, “For Somalis in Minneapolis, Jihadi Recruiting is a Recurring Nightmare,” All Things Considered, NPR, February 18, 2015, http://www.npr.org/2015/02/18/387302748/minneapolis-st-paul-remains-a-focus-of-jihadi-recruiting.

28 Akbar, Amna, “National Security's Broken Windows,” UCLA Law Review 62, no. 4 (2015): 879 Google Scholar.

29 Aziz, “Policing Terrorists in the Community,” 181.

30 SpearIt, “Muslim Radicalization in Prison: Responding with Sound Penal Policy or the Sound of Alarm?” Gonzaga Law Review 49, no. 1 (2014): 37–82 Google ScholarPubMed.

31 Tariq Toure, Black Seeds: The Poetry and Reflections of Tariq Toure (independently published, 2016), 63.

32 Donna Auston, “Mapping the Intersections of Islamophobia and #BlackLivesMatter: Unearthing Black Muslim Life and Activism in the Policing Crisis,” Sapelo Square, May 19, 2015, last modified August 30, 2016, https://sapelosquare.com/2016/08/30/mapping-the-intersections-of-islamophobia-blacklivesmatter-unearthing-black-muslim-life-activism-in-the-policing-crisis/.

33 James Poniewozik, “A Killing. A Pointed Gun. And Two Black Lives, Witnessing,” New York Times, July 7, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/us/philando-castile-facebook-police-shooting-minnesota.html.

34 The Salafis are a conservative Sunni Muslim movement.

35 Introduced by Sherman Jackson, this is the term popularly used to classify African American Muslims who are the descendants of slaves. Jackson classifies as “immigrant Muslims” those Muslims who migrated to the United States or are the progeny of immigrants. Jackson, Sherman, Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking toward the Third Resurrection (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 4–5 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I critique this binary and begin the conversation for a broader framework in Khaled A. Beydoun, “Beyond the Binary: Muslim America More than ‘Indigenous and Immigrant,’” Islamic Monthly, July 23, 2015, http://theislamicmonthly.com/beyond-a-binary-muslim-america-more-than-indigenous-and-immigrant/.

36 Dale Carlson, “3 New Murals on Joseph Campau Avenue in Hamtramck,” I Love Detroit Michigan, May 7, 2015, http://ilovedetroitmichigan.com/detroit-graffiti-street-art/3-new-murals-on-joseph-campau-avenue-in-hamtramck/#!wp-prettyPhoto[g17736]/3/.