Transcript
Speaker: because we're nearing a midterm election. We're seeing this playbook being used targeting Muslims as a threat to democracy, to American society. They're hoping it will mobilize voters to vote for them. Can you compare what you're seeing today to what we saw after 9-11? The institutionalization of anti-Muslim sentiment. Do you have the recommendations about how our country should deal with this? What people need to pay attention to is that it's driven by anti-Muslim sentiments, but it will come to our door whether we're Muslim or not.
Speaker: CARE invites all of you to attend CARE Con 2026. On September 12th and September 13th, we plan to host our annual policy conference and our 32nd annual gala.
Speaker: Tickets are on sale now. Join us to hear from journalists, elected officials, activists, students, and others about the issues facing our country, the American Muslim community, including threats to democracy and how we can save democracy for everyone in our country. Again, September 12th and September 13th.
Speaker: Join us for a great weekend, CareCon 2026. We'll see you there, inshallah. Visit care.com, www.care.com to get your tickets today. As-salamu alaykum.
Speaker: Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wassalat, wassalam al-rasulullah. As-salamu alaykum, may peace be upon you. Welcome everyone to today's episode of Care On Air, Beyond the Courtroom and Behind the Headlines. I'm your host, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, Deputy Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations. Again, thank you for joining us. Happy to have you here with us. As you all may have noticed, anti-Muslim hate in this country is out of control.
Speaker: um The rhetoric that we're seeing from anti-Muslim extremists, elected officials, is in many ways unprecedented. You've got members of Congress who have literally called for the destruction of mainstream Muslims for banning the practice of Islam, for expelling Muslim immigrants. ah things are out of control.
Speaker: At the same time that anti-Muslim rhetoric is out of control, you're seeing anti-Muslim violence escalating. You saw the horrific terrorist attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego earlier this summer by two white supremacists, the stabbing of a Muslim man at a mall in Salt Lake City by someone who wanted to spark a widespread war against Muslims. You've seen evangelisms of mosques.
Speaker: um And so the violence is escalating with the rhetoric. Now, the dichotomy is that Muslims are also making remarkable political and social progress. You're seeing Muslims elected to office in record numbers across this country, Muslims being more visible in media, Hollywood, sports, et cetera.
Speaker: And so it's this weird dichotomy. As the old Dickens line goes, it was the best of times and it was the worst of times. Why is all this happening? What's the reason for this dichotomy? We can think of no one better discuss this with other than our next guest, Professor Sahar Salad, who is the Director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, ISPU.
Speaker: you We're very happy to have her with us today. Let me read you a bit about her bio, and then we'll start with our interview about this important bio. subject. So Professor Salad was formerly an associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at Simmons University in Boston, Massachusetts. Her research there centered on the experiences of Muslims with surveillance.
Speaker: In her first book, Forever Suspect, Racialized Surveillance of Muslim Americans in the War on Terror, she examined how Muslim men and Muslim women experienced gendered forms of racialization through hyper surveillance because of the so-called War on Terror.
Speaker: Her second book co-authored was a Global Racial Enemy, Muslims and 21st Century Racism. That came out in 2024. And that examined how the the War on Terror has justified the detention, imprisonment and hyper surveillance of Muslims in the United States, ah India and China, as well as the United Kingdom.
Speaker: And so with all that expertise about domestic and global anti-Muslim hate, its manifestations, its causes, ah we can think of no one better to dive into the subject today. So, Professor Salad, thank you so much for joining us. A pleasure to have you here with us today.
Speaker: Salam, good to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you for joining us. so We appreciate it, especially at this time. So number one, first question for you. What are your observations of the state of anti-Muslim hate in America? um Am I a crazy person? Is it not as bad as I think it is? Is it worse? Like what just what's your observation of what it's looking like um in our country right now in terms of anti-Muslim animus?
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's pretty bad right now um Just to put it quite simply, we're witnessing, um i think, in this particular moment, because we're nearing a midterm election. That's a very um in some states we're going to see very close, tight. um elections, ah we're seeing the this playbook being used targeting Muslims as a threat as a threat to
Speaker: you know, democracy as a threat to American society, that that is being used in many, many campaigns to ah sort of hopeful, they're hoping it will mobilize voters to come out and vote for them. um I grew up in Texas, I went to the University of Texas at Austin for undergrad. And so I just came back um from there yesterday, and I can tell you that's one of the states where we're seeing some candidates use this sort of as ah as a way to get people to come out and vote for them. So it's it's pretty bad right now, and it's particularly worse during ah you know when you have an election coming up. So this isn't new that we're seeing anti-Muslim animus being used in around when we're we're getting close to to an election. So the midterms, and then obviously we'll see it, you know we might see it again amping up in the 2028 presidential elections.
Speaker: Yeah, it's funny. So at CARE, you know, anytime it's an even year, 2022, 2024, we kind of expect to see some spike in anti-Muslim hate because, ah you know, some politicians find it electorally beneficial to use Muslims as a political football, especially to win potentially Republican primaries or even on the Democratic side to scare voters away from Democratic candidates who might be muslim So every election year, we kind of expect to see some of this, but I don't think we've ever seen it as intense it is is as it is now, where you have elected officials calling for the destruction of mainstream Muslims. That's what Randy Fine has said. When you've got a caucus like the Sharia Free Caucus that's calling for the expulsion of Muslims for America, a ban on the practice of Muslims.
Speaker: of Islam, when you've got the president himself calling Muslim elected officials, quote unquote, jihadists, you know, the the the rhetoric is a far cry from what you saw even after the terrorist attack of 9-11. Can you compare, you know, what you're seeing today to what we saw in those first years after 9-11? Because I recall, you know, George Bush went to a mosque after 9-11 and said, hey, this does not represent Muslims.
Speaker: He stood with the Muslim community. And of course, he went on to do horrible, horrible things to Muslims around the world and and here as well to some extent. But his rhetoric was never openly hostile to Islam.
Speaker: um What's your what's your observation of the comparison between then and now in terms of the the type of anti-Muslim hate that we're seeing and what's tolerated in public discourse? Yeah, I think the difference between 9-11 and today is that we've had almost its the 25th anniversary of 9-11 coming up, ah you know, in September.
Speaker: And when 9-11 happened, you know, we didn't have in place all the policies that we have actually in place today, 25 later. know, there's it's, you know there's ah it's It's not that Trump, you know, invented anti-Muslim sentiments or racism. It's that he, you know, it was more overt, especially in 2016 when he ran in 2016. So, you know, there's a lot that was happening in this country in the mean in the meantime. so You have 9-11 and then you have um Bush coming out and and basically saying there are good Muslims, but there are bad Muslims. You know, so it's this dichotomy of but he was still saying there were some good Muslims. They're not all bad. um
Speaker: And so in the years since we've we saw when, you know, Barack Obama was campaigning to become president and in the years that he was actually president, that there were these you know, quote, unquote, accusations against him that he was a Muslim, you know, he was secretly a Muslim. And so, you know, this is the context within which this, you know, we've been living under in the 25 years. I think the difference is when Trump was running in 2016, he was very overt in in his campaigning, you know, with anti-Muslim animus, anti-Muslim you know, rhetoric, also anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican. was very, you know, um it was very overt compared to the so sort of covert types of, um you know, sentiments that we were seeing before or prior to him running. So it sort of unleashed it. It it made it, you know, um much more acceptable, you know, within a particular population. to call Muslims, you know, openly terrorist, that they were coming here to take over the anti-Sharia fear that we see today. But he really, um he inherited a lot of the policies that were in place already from past administrations, including a Democratic president. So my work really highlights that, you know, it's it's not that one party has, you know,
Speaker: put into place these policies, these counterterrorism laws and policies that, you know, sort of are are put into place under the rhetoric that Muslims are a threat to national security. That's the rhetoric. that gets public support around or has around counterterrorism laws and policies. So 9-11 is where we start to see them being put into place without much um critique of, you know, um what does this mean for a democratic society? What does this mean for civil rights, not just for Muslims, but for all Americans? And I think 25 years later, what we're seeing is um is that because these laws and policies have been put into place, we're seeing an expansion of their use. So things are very different now from nine eleven I think 9-11, we didn't have the infrastructure. And, you know, in the years since nine eleven we see the institutionalization of anti-Muslim sentiments.
Speaker: An example is airport security. You know, flying while Muslim is now coined term that we use, right, to talk about. It's akin to driving while black. So it's this notion that if you're Muslim and and you're and in an airport, you may be subjected to profiling simply because of your religious identity. um So I think, you know, one of the biggest things is we've ignored the experiences that Muslims have had, ah you know, in the past 25 years with discrimination and racism. And in this moment, and you know, you open this with we have a dichotomy here. We have on the one hand, extremely overt, you know, um obvious you know bias and bigotry against Muslims. You know, you can't practice or be Muslim. Let's ban them from wearing the hijab. Let's ban them from, you know, our country. And then on the other hand, we have these, um we have a Mamdani, we have an Abdul El-Sayed, we have Muslims running for office at historic levels and actually winning um their election. So, you know, i think that we're we're we're experiencing both perhaps because the overt um rhetoric is highlighting um how incredibly ah problematic and intense all of this has been over the last 25 years. We're starting to finally pay attention to it. Yeah.
Speaker: So let's unravel that. and So I think, you know, you're you're absolutely right. The politics of it, right? I think part of what we're seeing is that a backlash to Muslim political engagement. So as Muslims have become more successful politically, the backlash is, oh, we've got to resurrect anti-Muslim bigotry to scare voters away from Muslim elected officials.
Speaker: I think the other question I'd ask you is what role did the Gaza genocide play? Because obviously, American Muslims were very vocally critical of the genocide. And the Israeli government has been openly weaponizing Islamophobia, you know, to try to silence Americans and others. But American Muslims in particular who are critical of what Israel has done. To what extent do you think that has played some role in this research of anti-Muslim hate? Or do you think that's more of a tangential issue?
Speaker: No, it's definitely that's a moment where we at ISPU, we have data on this, you know, we did a survey, 2025 American Muslim poll captures this, but then also we did a survey, um you know, after October 7, on attitudes towards a ceasefire. And what we noted is that there was a a spike in anti-Muslim Islamophobia. We've seen a spike from 2022 to 2025 on our Islamophobia Index, which measures how much the general population is.
Speaker: you know, sort of adheres to Islamophobic tropes like Muslims are a threat, Muslims are misogynistic, these types of things. And and there was ah a major spike in that. So um October 7th had a lot to do with it. It's it's important to note that, you know, when it comes to, you know, Muslims critiquing the government um about their, you know, the United States governments in terms of foreign policy, when nine eleven happened um I interviewed American Muslims about their experiences, you know, in the aftermath of nine eleven And a lot of the participants that I talked to said, i I feel like I can't critique. I can feel like I can't speak about the United States foreign policy, as any American citizen would feel like that was their democratic right to be critical of you know our government's foreign policy or any of our government's policies. But Muslims in particular like in particular felt silenced because they were fearful that if they critique the government, that they would be marked as a threat to national security or a potential terrorist. And that's exactly what we're seeing with October 7th, is that the students, and just to note, the you know on college campuses, it it isn't majority, probably Muslim students you know who are protesting. It was a coalition of students. do you know There were Jewish students, non-Muslim students, right? But who gets punished?
Speaker: for speaking out, who gets marked as the threat. You know, it's it is, you know, under this, you know, this is where we're seeing these counterterrorism laws and policies being put into place that, you know, for the for the students, particularly if you we look at who are the ones who, you know, were detained and arrested, you know, in and the last few years put in.
Speaker: um you know, detention centers and and things like that were were Muslims. And so they were vulnerable. um and And particularly those who weren't U.S. citizens were very vulnerable to speaking out. So, you know, we definitely saw a spike in anti-Muslim discrimination and racism um after October 7th. You know, CARE knows the number of reports that came your way. in that aftermath of people saying I was you know i was discriminated against because I made a social media post critiquing this our policies and and things like that. So it certainly has. But I think the difference, people were like, is this like 9-11 all over again? My response is no, because now we actually have the policies in place.
Speaker: you know, since 9-11. Yeah, which begs my next question. Tell us about some of those structural policies. I think what what you're saying is that in the wake of the 9-11 attack, the government put in place policies that, in theory, we thought, well, that'll keep these people safe. But in fact, they've been weaponized to target Americans, including in particular Americans,
Speaker: who are Muslim or Americans in this case who are just critical of a foreign gu not even our government, but Americans who are critical of a foreign government and certainly immigrants who are critical of a foreign government. Can you talk to us about some of those specific policies that you think have been weaponized or were meant originally to suppress free speech or you know religious freedom or to target dissent?
Speaker: Yeah, there's so many policies that have been put into place. and Probably the biggest one was the USA Patriot Act, which just gave the government the ability to surveil specifically non-citizens. You know, it's written in there, non-citizens who might be a threat to national security. So increase the government's ability to surveil if they thought someone was, you know, participating in and anything that might happen.
Speaker: be considered a threat to to the United States. And so what we're, so what we saw was, you know, in an attempt to prevent another terrorist attack, which terrorism wasn't clearly defined, you know, and this is probably the biggest issue here is what is, you know, what constitutes terrorism, you know, what is terrorist attack? And so, you know, anyone who, you know, if if you're seen as, you know, the one that I can think of in particular in this moment is the nonprofit bill that we we are seeing right now being, you know, debated and and and some Congress, some members of Congress are really advocating for stripping or, you know, non-profit- This a non-profit killer bill you're talking about. The non-profit, yeah, a killer bill. yeah But it's stripping them of their status, right? Tax-exempt status. Based only on the say-so of the Treasury. So that if I recall, the Treasury Secretary just has to say, I think this non-profit has not not been charged with a crime. I just think they've supported terrorism and so I'm taking away their tax status. No criminal charges. no Exactly. I say it and and it is so.
Speaker: Right. So they're going to get stripped of their tax exempt status because if they are seen as providing material support for terrorism, what does that mean?
Speaker: What is material support for terrorism? Is it, you know, ah an organization that has done, you know, fundraise for, you know, for chair, you know, to, you know, to help with hunger issues or to provide food or to to do whatever that you know a year ago wasn't considered problematic to donate to this country, and then all of a sudden you know it is considered. So it's that it's that ambiguity in defining what material support for terrorism that makes Muslim nonprofits very vulnerable. to, you know, to this threat that the government could strip them and mark them as providing material support to terrorism. So if they start labeling student organizations as, you know, as potential terrorists, you know, and um someone, you know, donated to to, you know, somebody provided food or whatever, like these are the kinds of things that I think we're seeing. And and it's really important in an attempt to squash any sort of, um you know, any sort of dissent around our our government's policies. Yeah. I mean, it's it's so ironic looking back, you know, some of the most prominent prosecutions and the years after 9-11, for example, charities, the accusation wasn't that, for example, a charity is giving money to a terrorist group to buy guns and bombs. It was charities giving money to poor people.
Speaker: ah in a certain place. And because this charity is helping poor people, that alleviates the burden of whatever militant group was there to help the poor people. And therefore you're helping militant group and therefore you're going to jail, um which is not normally how we think of terrorism. Terrorism is you want to intentionally and you do support acts of violence against against civilians or any other criminal violence. Now you're helping poor people.
Speaker: Yeah. I digress. So now my next question for you, Professor, is, um you know, ISPUs work, you know, what your observations, do you all have any recommendations about how our country should deal with this anti-Muslim hate? Are there any lessons we've learned about how to push back against it, either the structural hate that you're talking about manifesting government policy or, you know, the the horizontal hate that comes from person to person? Does you or ISP have recommendations or observations about, you know, what we should be, what people of good faith, of all faiths or no faith at all, should be doing about this rise in hate?
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's very important that people understand that that, you know, I think in the years that I've been giving talks on on my work or even ISPU's data, um people generally are very open to hearing about this unsympathetic and sympathetic. And I'm talking about non-Muslims, people who aren't Muslim, you know, they're very much like, oh, you know, um This is terrible. The truth of the matter is that Muslims make up one to 2% of the total U.S. population.
Speaker: Right. So in a sense, they feel like, OK, that's very sad, but and it's terrible. But, you know, it doesn't impact them in their day to day lives. Most people don't know a Muslim because it's just impossible. One to two percent.
Speaker: But what you need to pay attention to is that this this anti-Muslim animus And ISPU has data on this that shows that when, you know, the the higher you are, you your score is on the Islamophobia index, the more likely also people are to support anti-democratic policies. So this has a connection to what I think a lot of Americans are very concerned about today, which is the erosion of democracy. So it does impact you. So let me just give you a very concrete example. When 9-11 happened, everybody welcomed airport security, right? Because airpport airplanes were used as a weapon.
Speaker: We federalize that. um And so we have a no-fly list. We have a select list. We have multiple lists that the government uses to determine who is safe, you know, who is who is it safe to to board a plane and and who is not. And we know that Muslims unfairly um are overpopulating these lists.
Speaker: However, after um COVID hit and there were mask mandates on airplanes, um like the, you know, there were CEOs of airlines saying we should put unruly passengers on the no-fly list.
Speaker: That's somebody who, you know, might refuse to wear a mask and the flight attendant has to mandate that a mask be worn on a flight. This was pre- vaccinations. And now there's a bill to, you know, to use no-fly lists for unruly passengers. This is an example of the expansion that we can see of these policies that, you know, initially, you know, were targeting Muslims, but are going to expand to be used against, you know, other individuals who are not Muslims. And I personally would advocate against this, you know, like there are
Speaker: passengers who might have mental health issues or or whatnot, to put them on a no fly list, you know, is something that we shouldn't be advocating to expand these counterterrorism laws and policies. So my recommendation is that we have to pay attention to the fact that these, you know, what may seem like it just targets one group in this moment is really being expanded um to target multiple um groups. And it's not just ah Muslims, it's people who are, you know, perhaps protesting, which should be a democratic, um you know, norm that we have in this country that we are allowed to gather and critique, you know, and do so nonviolently and peacefully. And I think that's what
Speaker: um people need to be pay attention to is that this doesn't just impact Muslims, that it actually has a much, much larger, there's a much larger scope. And it's driven by anti-Muslim sentiments, but it will impact, um you know,
Speaker: Latinos and African-Americans and even women you know and and white and Americans in this country. So um this is something that we should all be very, if you know we should be paying close attention to because it will come to our door, whether we're Muslim or not.
Speaker: essentially. Looking ahead, because it's hard to unring a bell, it's hard to undo all this infrastructure that's been created completely, right? And obviously there are legitimate and security concerns that you have, whether at the airport or what have you.
Speaker: What would you, if you were, you know, the next president comes into office, They're looking at all these policies saying, OK, what can I adjust that will still keep people safe, but also um remove or take out the discrimination that is very pervasive in some of these ah programs, laws or policies? Is it possible to adjust them? Is it more of like an abolish ICE type thing? Like, what would you say if you had a chance to to make recommendations that you thought actually could be implemented and about what you might say should be changed? Is it like imposing new anti-discrimination laws or watchdogs on these agencies? Like what, you know, any thoughts there?
Speaker: Yeah, I think they have the data on, you know, are these programs effective? Are they not effective? And, you know, some of the programs have have been terminated and expired, like NSEERS, the National Security Entry Exit Registration System. I mean, Obama um expired that, you know went before he terminated, before he left office. I think we can ah examine, you know, many of these policies. And um for example, ah the Government Accountability Office found that, you know, ah is are these
Speaker: airport security practices are they actually catching potential terrorists no you know but there was a rise in
Speaker: African-Americans and other people of color who have been subjected to you know profiling in airports. So there's data on what what is you know what are these laws and policies actually accomplishing? And you know you do ah sort of a a review of them and say, are they actually doing what they said they were intended to do? Or are they actually reproducing discrimination and bias? And I think you you know you look at these these policies and you determine that. And there's data that you you know I'm not exactly sure in this moment, but has been collected in the past on you know what these policies do. So I think it's a case by case. You say a lot of these policies you know are not... um
Speaker: are not are not making it safer, are not, have been, you know, known not to protect the United States from another attack. But what they've done is, in fact, they've um made some people, they've, they've exposed them to more discrimination. and and I think that's where you say we don't need this anymore. But I don't think you, um you know, I wouldn't advocate for just a sweeping abolish everything, you know, you have to look at it on a on a case by case and recognize when it is reproducing discrimination and bias.
Speaker: Data-based, fact-based. That's what ISPU does. So I think you all need to be at the table for those conversations because you've got the the data to at least show what what has been the negative impact of some of these programs and the government should be able say, right, what's, if anything, has been the positive impact. And if not, and if there is none, then, you know, the question answers itself. um You know, ISPU, as you look ahead to the to the future, what are some of your your priorities and areas of focus your organization's working on um in the coming months or so that that the public should know about?
Speaker: Yeah, so we're about to launch a study on student Muslim student experiences. And so um hopefully, you know, we'll have more data for you on um what Muslims are encountering ah in higher education. because As you asked before about October 7th, this was something that we noted in our in ah in a survey that we did that Muslim students were um saying that they were experiencing high rates of discrimination in on their college campuses. So this is something that we want to do a deeper dive into. And we're going to be conducting a qualitative study on Muslim student experiences. We have some pieces still coming out of our American Muslim poll on aging, on interfaith. We just had a webinar on mental health issues. So, you know, keep an eye out for all of that. And we also have, you know, a lot of data still from the American Muslim poll that we're sharing on civic engagement, you know, how Muslims are voting, What are their policy priorities? And so those are some of the things you can look to in the next year. that awesome Awesome. That's great. And I think the student survey will be particularly interesting because it's been it's so hard to get accurate data about students. you know Obviously, it's it's hard to poll students, survey students. And for right reasons we all' understand, they may be hesitant to share all their experience. So definitely look forward to that and your other work from ISPU.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much, Sahar, for joining us today. We really appreciate it We look forward to having you back in the future, inshallah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
