New Pew surveys debunk islamophobic tropes

by | August 17, 2017

One of the most pervasive myths about Muslims is that they’re either at least mildly supportive of Islamic extremism, or ambivalent to it. The truth is exactly the opposite.

A new report by Pew Research Center titled “Like most Americans, U.S. Muslims concerned about extremism in the name of Islam” debunks the myth handily. The title actually understates the results.

Male Muslims seem to be the least concerned about Islamic extremism, followed by young Muslims, and both groups have been little moved by the events of the last 6 years. All others are either essentially the same as the general American public (although the margins of error are quite high for some of these demographics – as high as 13.9% 19 times out of 20 for the 30–39 year-old Muslim group). A couple of groups – women and elderly Muslims – are more concerned than most Americans.

But that’s not all.

Another report using the same survey data was released a couple of weeks ago. This report, “U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society, but Continue to Believe in the American Dream”, went into great detail about American Muslims’ opinions and attitudes. Most of it is of little interest to Canadians, because it’s largely about Trump and the attitudes of their fellow Americans. But there were a couple of items of interest.

It turns out that – in complete defiance of the claims made by most islamophobic bigots – Muslims are less likely to support violent extremism than the bigots themselves!

None of this should really come as a surprise to anyone who hasn’t had their head up their ass the last year or so. There is extensive and growing evidence that the real threat to Canadian society is not Muslims, but rather right-wing extremism. And if there was any doubt of that remaining, I think the recent events in Charlottetown have put them to rest.

4 thoughts on “New Pew surveys debunk islamophobic tropes

  1. Randy

    This debunks nothing. As you should well know, the data used for the previous claim came from an earlier Pew survey that dealt with the rest of the world.

    This merely fills in a gap, and fortunately illustrates that maybe something is different about US Muslims than everywhere else in the world (including the UK). Or maybe it just asked different questions. A statistician’s analysis would be nice.

    Reply
    1. Indi Post author

      Your comprehension skills are alarming as always. I didn’t say this debunks previous *data* (it doesn’t). I said it debunks widely-believed *myths*. I literally used the word “myths” right in the first sentence, and “tropes” in the title. The point I make in this post, and that I’ve made multiple times elsewhere, is that Canadians’ beliefs about Muslims, Islam, and Islamic extremism are not justified by the facts.

      As for your other ignorant comment, that idea has been debunked *multiple* times on CA, and elsewhere. For example: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/03/15/csis-highlights-white-supremacist-threat-ahead-of-radical-islam.html and note that article *predates* the Québec mosque shooting and the sharp increase in right-wing incidents that came with Trump. The Québec mosque shooting *alone* has a higher death toll than all Islamic extremism incidents in Canada in the last 20 years (and probably longer, but that’s as far back as my data goes).

      Reply
  2. Randy

    “There is extensive and growing evidence that the real threat to Canadian society is not Muslims, but rather right-wing extremism”

    Who shot up parliament?

    Oh that’s right. It was Nazis.

    Reply
  3. Bubba Kincaid

    Yeah. The lack of real dialogue and the seeming closing of lines of communication and thought in favor of cynical amusement and pernicious desensitization seems to be affecting the general population more and more.

    My neighbor will be killed. Not I.

    Reply

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