Because race in the United States has typically been understood as solely a black-and-white paradigm, there is a tendency to equate Muslim experiences as racial only if they can be compared neatly to black experiences in the United States. This way of thinking is reflected in Samuel Jackson’s claim. But Jackson’s statement is problematic because it relies on the assumption that Muslims are not already black. African Americans make up the largest American-born Muslim population in the United States (Pew Research Center 2011).

XREF: Challenges the black-and-white racial paradigm by showing Muslim and black identities overlap substantially.

Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, loc. 460