Evelyn Alsultany
We are so excited to start working with author and professor Evelyn Alsultany on her forthcoming book Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion by New York University Press. Professor Alsultany is a leading expert on the history of representations of Arabs and Muslims in the US media. Her research, teaching, and lecturing are driven by a commitment to bringing Arab and Muslim Americans into the broader conversation about racial politics in the US In her lectures, she seeks to educate audiences on the history of stereotypical representations of Arabs and Muslims in the US media, its consequences as evident in public opinion and government policies, and alternatives to foster greater human respect and dignity.
She is the author of Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11 (New York University Press, 2012) that examines a paradox in an increase in positive portrayals of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. media after 9/11 and a simultaneous increase in hate crimes and government policies targeting Arabs and Muslims. She shows that even seemingly positive images can produce meanings that justify exclusion and inequality.
Professor Alsultany is currently lecturing about how the Trump administration’s “Muslim ban” changed depictions of Muslims in Hollywood, creating more Muslim characters outside of the context of terrorism than ever before. She examines how the media approaches diversifying representations, the possibilities and limits to common approaches, and what is needed to successfully create a more equal future for all.
Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion
How diversity initiatives end up marginalizing Arab Americans and US Muslims
One of Donald Trump’s first actions as President was to sign an executive order to limit Muslim immigration to the United States, a step toward the “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” he had campaigned on. This extraordinary act of Islamophobia provoked unprecedented opposition: Hollywood movies and mainstream television shows began to feature more Muslim characters in contexts other than terrorism; universities and private businesses included Muslims in their diversity initiatives; and the criminal justice system took hate crimes against Muslims more seriously. Yet Broken argues that, even amid this challenge to institutionalized Islamophobia, diversity initiatives fail on their promise by only focusing on crisis moments.
Evelyn Alsultany argues that Muslims get included through “crisis diversity,” where high-profile Islamophobic incidents are urgently responded to and then ignored until the next crisis. In the popular cultural arena of television, this means interrogating even those representations of Muslims that others have celebrated as refreshingly positive. What kind of message does it send, for example, when a growing number of “good Muslims” on TV seem to have arrived there, ironically, only after leaving the faith? In the realm of corporations, she critically examines the firing of high-profile individuals for anti-Muslim speech—a remedy that rebrands corporations as anti-racist while institutional racism remains intact. At universities, Muslim students get included in diversity, equity, and inclusion plans but that gets disrupted if they are involved in Palestinian rights activism. Finally, she turns to hate crime laws revealing how they fail to address root causes.
In each of these arenas, Alsultany finds an institutional pattern that defangs the promise of Muslim inclusion, deferring systemic change until and through the next “crisis.”
Stay tuned for updates!
