The state of Muslim America in 2008, according to a new report from the Council on American-Islamic Relations out today: Civil rights for Muslims are in peril, even as America becomes a less dangerous place to practice Islam.
The data comes from CAIR’s annual “Seeking Full Inclusion” report, which aggregates and analyzes the civil rights violations reported to the group throughout the year. The report on 2008 was released today, and shows a rise in discrimination against school-age Muslims and Muslim institutions, but a sharp decline in hate crime violence. Despite the increases, though, there are signs that the country is becoming more tolerant toward Muslims.
Eight years after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., CAIR legislative director Cory Saylor told TPMDC the report suggests the darkest days American Muslims faced after 9/11 have past.
“Our thinking is that the spike after 9/11 has dissipated,” he said. “I hate to say it like this, but it’s looking like violence against Muslims in America has returned to normal level.”
At the same time, Saylor said, other data from the report is worrying. CAIR received 153 reported cases of discrimination in schools last year, a 31% increase over the year before.
“It’s really troubling,” Saylor said. Many of the incidents reported involved grade-school age children, and included epithets and attacks on traditional Muslim garb, such as girls having their headscarves ripped off.
Then there’s the discrimination toward Muslim institutions, which the report shows rose last year. The findings include hate mail and other similar attacks sent to mosques via the internet. Saylor said CAIR’s seen those rise again this year, following the shootings at Ft. Hood.
“Right after Ft. Hood, a lot of people were sitting at their computers and getting really angry,” he said. “The google ‘Muslim’ and start sending and start sending hate mail to whoever or whatever pops up.”
But there’s an overall shift toward tolerance found in the report that Saylor said points to changing attitudes about Muslim stereotyping among Americans.
“Back during the 2004 elections, our community was a punching bag,” he said. “We saw a lot of the same stuff in 2008, but we also saw a lot of pushback against it.”
He cited numerous examples moments during the election cycle when anti-Muslim statements were rejected buy the public and said that, ironically, the shrill Muslim fear-mongering increasingly found on right-wing media could be responsible.
“You can argue there’s an emerging trend of people finding it uncomfortable [to stereotype Muslims] because it has become so vitriolic,” he said. “The kind of stuff that’s out there now causes anyone with a soul to react.”
That growing media voice troubles Saylor. “We can’t afford to quantify the media,” he said, “there’s a massive amount of [anti-Muslim rhetoric] out there.”
“I’m worried about the 2009 numbers,” he added. “We’ve got bad economic times, the election of the first black president — that’s fuel for hate groups.”
