Muslims at the American Vigil

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 26-60
Author(s):  
Alisa Perkins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Muslim American ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Civic Leaders ◽  
Faith Leaders ◽  
United States Today ◽  
The People

The 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting at a gay dance club in Florida fomented a surge in Islamophobia, as pundits blamed the perpetrator’s Muslim identity for his hateful act. In the aftermath of the violence, vigils across the United States offered forums for Muslim American and other groups to publically express their shared grief and to address homophobia and Islamophobia together. The people affected most intensely by the tragedy were LGBTQ Muslims, who were simultaneously subjected to both intensified homophobia and Islamophobia in the wake of the shooting. This local ethnographic study of Orlando vigils in Michigan examines how the Orlando aftermath encouraged debate about the issue of LGBTQ Muslim visibility and conversation about the potential for Muslim civic leaders and mosque leaders to serve as their allies. During the Orlando vigils, LGBTQ Muslims, allies, and faith leaders drew on, negotiated, and/or resisted various repertoires of mourning and advocacy. Their responses to the Orlando moment provide valuable information about how connections among faith, sexuality, race, and protest are shaping the emergence of LGBTQ Muslim visibilities in the United States today.

scholarly journals Muslims at the American Vigil

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 26-60
Author(s):  
Alisa Perkins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Muslim American ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Civic Leaders ◽  
Faith Leaders ◽  
United States Today ◽  
The People

The 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting at a gay dance club in Florida fomented a surge in Islamophobia, as pundits blamed the perpetrator’s Muslim identity for his hateful act. In the aftermath of the violence, vigils across the United States offered forums for Muslim American and other groups to publically express their shared grief and to address homophobia and Islamophobia together. The people affected most intensely by the tragedy were LGBTQ Muslims, who were simultaneously subjected to both intensified homophobia and Islamophobia in the wake of the shooting. This local ethnographic study of Orlando vigils in Michigan examines how the Orlando aftermath encouraged debate about the issue of LGBTQ Muslim visibility and conversation about the potential for Muslim civic leaders and mosque leaders to serve as their allies. During the Orlando vigils, LGBTQ Muslims, allies, and faith leaders drew on, negotiated, and/or resisted various repertoires of mourning and advocacy. Their responses to the Orlando moment provide valuable information about how connections among faith, sexuality, race, and protest are shaping the emergence of LGBTQ Muslim visibilities in the United States today.

The puritan heritage and current economic attitudes in America

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Emory Elliott
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The United States ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
United States Today ◽  
The People ◽  
National Ideology ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Individual

This essay sustains that the contemporary economic yearnings of American society are deeply rooted in seventeenth century Puritan Massachusetts — a cultural heritage which the people are unwilling and perhaps unable to abandon.The author identifies five of the most firmly-held assumptions as a beginning for the study of cultural values and economics in the United States today: 1. The assumption that America has a special, divinely ordained role as a world leader — exemplar of democratic ideals; 2. An assumption that those in power and authority should be willing to sacrifice something for the common good; 3. A sense of pride in the product itself and identity with the institution; 4. A sense of certain independence from the employer based on the integrity of the individual; 5. The assumption that individuals and institutions adhere to a set of shared moral principles. The essay concludes that the strengths of the Protestant ethic which have become part of the national ideology have begun to produce more barriers than benefits to progress and that what is urgently needed in the United States today is creative and imaginative leadership.   Este artigo sustenta que os anseios econômicos contemporâneos da sociedade americana estão profundamente arraigados na Massachusetts puritana do século dezessete — herança cultural da qual o povo não quer e talvez não consiga se libertar.O autor apresenta cinco das pressuposições mais enraizadas, como ponto de partida para o estudo dos valores culturais e econômicos dos Estados Unidos de hoje: 1. A suposição de que os Estados Unidos representam um papel conferido por Deus, como líder mundial — modelo dos ideais democráticos; 2. Uma suposição de que os detentores do poder e as autoridades deveriam estar dispostos ao sacrifício pelo bem comum; 3. Um sentimento de orgulho por aquilo que produzem e identificação com a instituição; 4. Um sentido de certa independência do empregador, baseado na integridade do indivíduo; 5. A suposição de que os indivíduos e as instituições são fiéis a um conjunto geral de princípios morais. O artigo conclui que a força da ética protestante, que é parte da ideologia americana, passou a gerar mais obstáculos do que benefícios para o progresso, e que os Estados Unidos de hoje precisam urgentemente de liderança imaginativa e criadora.

Agnes Makes Landfall

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-40
Author(s):  
Timothy W. Kneeland
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Electrical Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local State ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
Civic Leaders ◽  
Psychological Healing ◽  
The People

This chapter focuses on Hurricane Agnes, which struck the United States in June of 1972 and affected the lives of tens of thousands of people from Florida to New York. The thirty-two trillion gallons of water that fell on New York and Pennsylvania caused devastation that left buildings and homes in ruins and property damage estimated to be in the billions of dollars. The flood also left some people homeless and some without electrical power, telephones, fresh drinking water, or sewers. Many were isolated from the outside world as roads and bridges collapsed or buckled due to flooding. Survival was the goal of the communities during the first seventy-two hours of the disaster. Political and economic recovery became the focus of civic leaders in the weeks after, but the trauma of that summer also called for psychological healing. Mired in mud and misery, bereft of property and employment, the people of New York and Pennsylvania looked to their local, state, and federal governments for help and answers.

Evaluating Resistance toward Muslim American Political Integration

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Brian R. Calfano ◽  
Nazita Lajevardi ◽  
Melissa R. Michelson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Community ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Leader ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Muslim American ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Public Mind ◽  
The Public ◽  
Arab Muslim

Abstract Muslims in the United States are often constructed as anti-American and are perceived to have little engagement with politics. Moreover, Arab and Muslim identity is often conflated in the public mind. In this note, we introduce results from a randomized survey experiment conducted in three states with varying Muslim populations—Ohio, California, and Michigan—to assess how trustworthy respondents rate a local community leader calling for unity when that individual signals themselves to be an Arab, Muslim, or Arab Muslim, as opposed to when they do not signal their background. Across the board, and in each state, respondents rate the community leader as less trustworthy when he is identified as Muslim American or as Arab Muslim, but not when he is identified as Arab. These results suggest that the public does not conflate these two identities and that Muslims are evaluated more negatively than Arabs, even when hearing about their prosocial democratic behavior.

Violence, Social Movements, and Black Freedom Struggles

Contention ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
AK Thompson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Today ◽  
Black Freedom ◽  
Current Events ◽  
Research Agendas ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Freedom Struggles

George Floyd’s murder by police on 26 May 2020 set off a cycle of struggle that was notable for its size, intensity, and rate of diffusion. Starting in Minneapolis, the uprising quickly spread to dozens of other major cities and brought with it a repertoire that included riots, arson, and looting. In many places, these tactics coexisted with more familiar actions like public assemblies and mass marches; however, the inflection these tactics gave to the cycle of contention is not easily reconciled with the protest repertoire most frequently mobilized during movement campaigns in the United States today. This discrepancy has led to extensive commentary by scholars and movement participants, who have often weighed in by considering the moral and strategic efficacy of the chosen tactics. Such considerations should not be discounted. Nevertheless, I argue that both the dynamics of contention witnessed during the uprising and their ambivalent relationship to the established protest repertoire must first be understood in historical terms. By considering the relationship between violence, social movements, and Black freedom struggles in this way, I argue that scholars can develop a better understanding of current events while anticipating how the dynamics of contention are likely to develop going forward. Being attentive to these dynamics should in turn inform our research agendas, and it is with this aim in mind that I offer the following ten theses.

Populism and Liberal Democracy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takis S. Pappas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
The People ◽  
Original Definition ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Great Relevance ◽  
Definition Of

Based on an original definition of modern populism as “democratic illiberalism” and many years of meticulous research, Takis Pappas marshals extraordinary empirical evidence from Argentina, Greece, Peru, Italy, Venezuela, Ecuador, Hungary, the United States, Spain, and Brazil to develop a comprehensive theory about populism. He addresses all key issues in the debate about populism and answers significant questions of great relevance for today’s liberal democracy, including: • What is modern populism and how can it be differentiated from comparable phenomena like nativism and autocracy? • Where in Latin America has populism become most successful? Where in Europe did it emerge first? Why did its rise to power in the United States come so late? • Is Trump a populist and, if so, could he be compared best with Venezuela’s Chávez, France’s Le Pens, or Turkey’s Erdoğan? • Why has populism thrived in post-authoritarian Greece but not in Spain? And why in Argentina and not in Brazil? • Can populism ever succeed without a charismatic leader? If not, what does leadership tell us about how to challenge populism? • Who are “the people” who vote for populist parties, how are these “made” into a group, and what is in their minds? • Is there a “populist blueprint” that all populists use when in power? And what are the long-term consequences of populist rule? • What does the expansion, and possibly solidification, of populism mean for the very nature and future of contemporary democracy? Populism and Liberal Democracy will change the ways the reader understands populism and imagines the prospects of liberal democracy.

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