Ellis: Islamophobia will yield to progress.
Joseph Ellis, professor of history, contextualizes the current peak of Islamophobic sentiment in the United States, a nation of immigrants.
The United States is aflame with anti-immigrant sentiment writes Devon Haynie in an essay in U.S. News & World Report. The trend is reflected by the rhetoric specifically around Muslim immigration at the very highest levels of political debate.
The recent rise of Islamophobia can be traced to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and has been stoked by American anti-Muslim groups and election-cycle fearmongering.
Media attention around Muslim identity and Muslim crimes have further inflamed anti-Muslim feeling, according to the essay. Public opinion has shifted accordingly, with 47 percent of Republicans identifying “most” or “some” Muslims as “anti-American” in a 2002 Pew poll, compared to 63 percent in 2016. The world crisis of Syrian refugees has underscored the issue.
While anti-Muslim public opinion may be strong now, however, it will almost inevitably lose its heat, said Joseph Ellis, professor emeritus of history at Mount Holyoke College.
"We are better at this than other nation states. We are a nation of immigrants," he said. “[Nativism] is like a virus, and you can't kill it with antibiotics, but eventually it goes away. The health of the body politic eventually recovers."
Read the full essay.