The answer to this question is that the two trends—the positive and the negative—are part of one process. Over the years, I have given this process several names: mainstreaming, disciplinary inclusion, crisis identity formation. In each case, the central idea is the same. As political constituencies and as sites of local community formation, Detroit's Arab/Muslim populations make substantial gains during times of political crisis in the Middle East, especially when the United States is directly engaged in violent conflict with enemies defined as Arab, Muslim, or both. These gains are possible only to the extent that (and only because) local Arab/Muslim communities are seen as ambiguously American, and ambiguously Other. Attempts to remove this ambiguity in moments of crisis generate mainstreaming effects that are also, of necessity, marginalizing effects. The process is traumatic and empowering; it already has a long history; and the 9/11 attacks were rapidly assimilated to its logic.

Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ Th…, loc. 670