Racism in Muslim communities

St. Louis, Missouri, has a legacy of anti-Black racism within white Muslim communities. While Bosnian Muslims experience a complicated relationship to whiteness, they are considered white by the US Census and may enjoy white privileges that Black residents of St. Louis may not enjoy.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://qz.com/308348/theres-another-community-raging-in-ferguson-over-a-senseless-killing/ |title=There's another community upset in St. Louis over a senseless killing |date=11 December 2014 |publisher=[[Quartz (publication)|Quartz]] |accessdate=2022-04-22}}</ref> In 2014, a Bosniak-American named Zamir Begic was beaten to death with hammers. The murder caused shock in the [[History of Bosnian Americans in St. Louis|Bosnian community of St. Louis]] and protests were held against violent crime. Because Begic was white and his suspected assailants were Black and Latino, some claimed that the murder of Begic was an example of "black-on-white" crime while others claimed it was a "a targeted attack on Bosnians". While the belief that Begic was targeted due to his ethnicity or race contributed to racial tensions between the Black community and white Muslims of Bosnian descent, St. Louis police did not believe the attack had any ethnic or racial basis.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-30287363 |title=Are the media ignoring another St Louis killing? |work=BBC News |date=3 December 2014 |accessdate=2022-04-17}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/st-louis-bosnians-have-been-dragged-to-the-forefront-of-the-citys-racial-tensions/ |title=St. Louis Bosnians Have Been Dragged to the Forefront of the City's Racial Tensions |date=16 December 2014 |publisher=Vice News |access-date=2022-04-17}}</ref>

St. Louis, Missouri, has a legacy of anti-Black racism within white Muslim communities. While Bosnian Muslims experience a complicated relationship to whiteness, they are considered white by the US Census and may enjoy white privileges that Black residents of St. Louis may not enjoy.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://qz.com/308348/theres-another-community-raging-in-ferguson-over-a-senseless-killing/ |title=There's another community upset in St. Louis over a senseless killing |date=11 December 2014 |publisher=[[Quartz (publication)|Quartz]] |accessdate=2022-04-22}}</ref> In 2014, a Bosniak-American named Zamir Begic was beaten to death with hammers. The murder caused shock in the [[History of Bosnian Americans in St. Louis|Bosnian community of St. Louis]] and protests were held against violent crime. Because Begic was white and his suspected assailants were Black and Latino, some claimed that the murder of Begic was an example of "black-on-white" crime while others claimed it was a "a targeted attack on Bosnians". While the belief that Begic was targeted due to his ethnicity or race contributed to racial tensions between the Black community and white Muslims of Bosnian descent, St. Louis police did not believe the attack had any ethnic or racial basis.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-30287363 |title=Are the media ignoring another St Louis killing? |work=BBC News |date=3 December 2014 |accessdate=2022-04-17}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/st-louis-bosnians-have-been-dragged-to-the-forefront-of-the-citys-racial-tensions/ |title=St. Louis Bosnians Have Been Dragged to the Forefront of the City's Racial Tensions |date=16 December 2014 |publisher=Vice News |access-date=2022-04-17}}</ref>

According to the novelist [[Laila Lalami]], there is a significant legal distinction for American Muslims depending on their race, noting the difference between African-American Muslim descendants of enslaved people and Syro-Lebanese Muslim settlers who gained Indigenous land in [[North Dakota]] and founded the first mosque in the United States. She notes that Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and other Arab people acquired a legal classification as "free white persons" under court interpretations of the [[Naturalization Act of 1790]]. The whiteness of Arab Muslims was contested in the early 1900s, but Muslims were eventually classified as white. A court case in 1942 in Michigan, ''In Re Ahmed Hassan'', ruled that Arab Muslims could not be classified as white. The judge ruled that a Muslim immigrant from Yemen was "undisputably dark brown in color" despite not being "Asiatic" and that "Arabs as a class are not white and therefore not eligible for citizenship." However, less than 2 years later in 1944 a Massachusetts court ruled in ''Ex Parte Mohriez'' that a Muslim immigrant from what is now [[Saudi Arabia]] was white, with the judge noting that this was the general practice of the [[United States Immigration and Naturalization Service]] at the time.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/magazine/im-a-muslim-and-arab-american-will-i-ever-be-an-equal-citizen.html |title=I’m a Muslim and Arab American. Will I Ever Be an Equal Citizen? |publisher=[[The New York Times]] |accessdate=2025-07-07}}</ref>

==See also==

==See also==