I did not hear from Juan again. But his story hasn’t left me, and the intersection he occupies is at the heart of this book. I share his story when speaking at colleges and universities, as well as intimately, among friends and activists, to signal that victims of Islamophobia are not merely Arab or Middle Eastern—sometimes they are not even Muslim!—and to signal that this rising system of hate is more frequently inflicted by the state than it is by individuals. Most importantly, I share it to show that Islamophobia often converges with other forms of hate, such as racism, xenophobia, sexism, and homophobia, morphing into a form of hatred custom-made for this specific target.

XREF: Connects to broader literature on intersectionality in systems of oppression, where overlapping identity-based hatreds compound for specific targets.

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Unde…, loc. 77