“Islamophobia has become the accepted form of racism in America,” I was quoted as saying in the August 2010 TIME Magazine cover story. “You can always take a potshot at Muslims or Arabs and get away with it.” At the time, a joint TIME-Abt SRBI poll found that 46 percent of Americans believe Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence against nonbelievers. Only 37 percent claimed to know a Muslim American. Overall, 61 percent opposed the Park51 project, while just 26 percent were in favor of it. Just 23 percent said it would be a symbol of religious tolerance, while 44 percent said it would be an insult to those who died on 9/11.

XREF: Related to the Park51/Cordoba House controversy and broader post-9/11 Islamophobia discourse.

Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Gl…, loc. 565