From Sheer Racialization to Utter Weaponization: Framing the Islamophobic Discourse in the United States and France

Year 2025, Issue: 64, 39 - 51, 30.12.2025

Lanouar Ben Hafsa

Abstract

The current paper aims to unpack the intersectionality of race and Islamophobia. It takes the United States and France as cases in point, not only because they differ as to the way they accommodate their Muslim minority groups, but also the way they define and racialize their identity. In such a context, the concept ‘Islamophobia’ which has been the focus of a vast range of scholarly literature over the past few decades, takes cognizance of an overarching trend that ostensibly demonizes Muslims and casts them as the threatening ‘Other.’ Despite claims that the West has definitively crept into a post-racial era after it dropped the biological canon used previously in race categorization, a new type of racism warranted by cultural and religious underpinnings started to target Muslim communities on the ground that their ‘Islamic culture’ is nefarious to ‘Western civilization.’ What is more, besides the Orientalist rhetoric painting Islam as a foreign creed and constructing Muslims as ominous subjects, Islamophobia has become a kind of ‘subliminal racism,’ or ‘racism without race,’ legitimized and trivialized by mainstream media.

Keywords

Islamophobia , intersectionality , Muslim identity , U.S. racial profiling , French republicanism.

Ethical Statement

Our research has been conducted in accordance with all ethical guidelines.

Supporting Institution

University of Tunis

Project Number

Fall 2025 General Issue

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