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Human Rights Law Commons

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Law and Race

Boston University School of Law

Xenophobia

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Human Rights Law

The Past As Present, Unlearned Lessons And The (Non-) Utility Of International Law, Susan M. Akram Jul 2019

The Past As Present, Unlearned Lessons And The (Non-) Utility Of International Law, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

The contemporary moment provides an acute illustration of the dangers of historical amnesia—as if the Trump Administration’s policies of exclusion, extremist nationalism, and presidential imperialism were singular to ‘now,’ and entirely reversible in the next election. This Article argues to the contrary; that we have been down this road before, and the current crisis in immigration and refugee policies is the inevitable development of trends of racism, including anti-Arab, anti-Muslim racism and xenophobia, that have only become normalized by the populist resurgence of Trumpism. If this premise is correct—that we are experiencing a culmination of a historical trajectory—what lessons from …


The Aftermath Of September 11, 2001: The Targeting Of Arabs And Muslims In America, Susan M. Akram Jul 2002

The Aftermath Of September 11, 2001: The Targeting Of Arabs And Muslims In America, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

THE DEMONIZING OF ARABS AND Muslims in America began well before the terrible tragedy of September 11, 2001. It can be traced to deliberate mythmaking by film and media,2 stereotyping as part of conscious strategy of 'experts' and polemicists on the Middle East,3 the selling of a foreign policy agenda by US government officials and groups seeking to affect that agenda,4 and a public susceptible to images identifying the unwelcome 'other* in its midst.5 Bearing the brunt of these factors are Arab and Muslim non-citizens in this country. A series of government laws and policies since …