The spectre of Islamophobia in the United States has been steadily growing over the past three decades. There have been violent incidents across the country and widespread discrimination against Muslims. As with any form of racism, ignorance drives this menace and manifests in negative stereotypes of Arabs and Islam across the mainstream media and in popular culture.
Take the recent Halloween costumes sold by America’s largest retailer, Walmart. On its website, the chain store featured a “Sheikh Fagin” nose, which was marketed as a “latex prosthetic nose perfect for an Arab Sheikh”. The plastic nose was widely interpreted as an offensive caricature typical of classic European anti-Semitic propaganda. Fagin, Charles Dickens’s famous Jewish villain in Oliver Twist, was another sign of the convergence between classic anti-Semitism and modern Islamophobia.
After public outcry, Walmart removed the product but the nose can still be purchased on Amazon. The fight against Islamophobia and the ignorance that fuels it will happen in unlikely places.
