America's Long History of Hostility to Islam

Among the most startling aspects of 2010 election campaign was the right wing manipulation of the fear of Islam. Oklahoma’s measure 755, forbidding “the use of international and Shariah law in state courts,” was adopted by a large majority; in North Carolina Renee Ellmers won a seat in the House with a campaign that focused on distant New York City, calling the proposed Park51 community center “a victory mosque”; and in Florida, Tea Party candidate Alan West won in a campaign that included frequent “history lessons,” teaching, among other things, that “Islam is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology. It is not a religion.”