Why Can’t We Talk About Islam Honestly?

Islam is not a race. Islam is not an ethnicity. Islam is a religion and a political philosophy. And it is distinct from other religions and political philosophies.

Pointing this fact out does not make a person obsessed with hatred or racism. A Muslim might hold moderate views or he might hold extreme ones. If we act as if the color of people’s skin rather than their beliefs define them, we’re engaging in a curiously narrow-minded discussion about one of the world’s great faiths—one that is comprised of all races and many ethnicities.

Yet this is exactly the formulation many on the Left demand.

I bring this up after reading Charles Blow’s latest overwrought piece, in which he wishfully contends that “Anti Muslim is Anti America.” Conflating a bunch of insane Trump-isms and GOP overreactions with completely legitimate concerns about illiberalism within Islam, Blow asserts we should put “a lid on this corrosive language.” What he means is that we should accept his ahistorical interpretation of what America and Islam means—though he gives no indication that he comprehends either.

It’s hardly un-American to believe that the foundational values of your society are preferable to the ones that make Yemen or Iran or Pakistan possible. We could spend days exploring the crimes committed against liberalism and decency by moderate Islamic nations without ever touching on the topic of ISIS or al-Qaeda. These crimes transcend ethnicity and race, but they all have something in common. Something we’re not supposed to talk about.

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