Art Students Can Be Anti-Muslim Bigots, Too

Sometimes while living in this post-racial utopian harmony — in which Chris Matthews can forget that Obama is black for an hour — I tend to assume racism resides just in America's less cosmopolitan regions...you know, the towns where the History Channel shoots reality shows about snake-handlers.

My mind doesn't exactly associate hate crimes with metropolitan liberal arts colleges: places where racist views are at least masked in sarcasm and strategically-contextualized Dave Chappelle quotes. But this month, hate showed that it needs no ID to enter the halls of the School of Art Institute Chicago (SAIC). There, a student installation entitled 1700% Project was vandalized with Abu-Ghraib-stylee caricatures, and a voice bubble encapsulating the words "Kill All Arabs." The vandalization happened in broad daylight, too. And wait, it gets juicier: the exhibit (the only one to suffer any damage) was displayed to raise awareness about anti-Muslim sentiment in America.

In the wake of 9/11, we've seen an explosion of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiment, including a slew of violent attacks against not only Arab-Americans but also Sri Lankan-Americans, Egyptian-Americans, Pakistani-Americans and pretty much any brown person who's ever as much as glanced toward the east. Within a year of 9/11, violence against those who "appear to be of terrorist descent" rose by 1700%.

Although the "Muslim terrorist" stereotype didn't originate on 9/11, it's certainly been embedded in American narrative ever since.  Over the past decade, we've seen countless media images depicting Muslims as terrorists. Yet a recent study revealed that "Islamic extremists" only accounted for 6% of terrorist activity between 1980 and 2005 (how psyched are we that the FBI has a terrorism pie chart??). Unfortunately, this information hasn't done much to ease people's hatred. On the same day that the 1700% Project was vandalized, someone attempted to bomb a mosque in Jacksonville, Florida. Anti-Muslim sentiment is still rampant.

Now, I'm certainly not labeling SAIC or any other university as a safe haven for post-racism. But it's disappointing to see an academic institute meant to furnish creative minds as the setting for such shameful hate crime. The 1700% Project's creator, Anida Yoeu Ali, says that the act of vandalism wasn't just an attack on her, but also "an attack on multiple communities to which the work speaks for." In reality, it's an attack on us as an entire nation. Someone call Homeland Security.

Photo credit: zoomartbrush