The Intersection of Race and Religion

• Pages: 333-363
• Author: Khiara M. Bridges

333

Chapter 15

THE INTERSECTION OF

RACE AND RELIGION

I. Introduction

Sociologist Erik Love begins his book, titled Islamophobia and

Racism, with the story of an incident involving a young man named

Cameron Mohammed:

Mohammed and his girlfriend were walking to their car in

a Wal-Mart parking lot near Tampa, Florida. A man

suddenly approached, shouting, “Are you Middle Eastern?”

Mohammed, who was raised in Florida and born in

Trinidad, simply said no. “Are you Muslim?” Mohammed is

Catholic, so again, he said no. The stranger scowled,

“Nigger with a white girl.” Suddenly, he pulled out a gas-

powered pellet gun and fired at Mohammed’s head, at point-

blank range. A hailstorm of pellets lacerated Mohammed’s

face and neck. The shooter, a White man named Daniel

Quinnell, fled the scene before police arrived. Fortunately,

Mohammed recovered, but he needed surgery to remove

some of the pellets. A few days after the shooting, Quinnell

was captured by police. When an officer informed him that

Mohammed was not Muslim, he did not seem to care.

“They’re all the same,” he reportedly said.

1

Was Cameron Mohammed a victim of racism? Religious animus?

Both? Neither?

Along similar lines, what do we make of the fact that during his

campaign for the presidency in 2016, Donald Trump stated “I think

Islam hates us” and went on to declare that what the country needed

was a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United

States”?

2

After winning the election later that year, he took steps to

fulfill his campaign promise by issuing an executive order that

banned nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries from

entering the country for ninety days.

3

Tellingly, the order made an

exception that allowed persons to immigrate from the identified

1

ERIK LOVE, ISLAMOPHOBIA AND RACISM IN AMER ICA 1 (2017).

2

Abed Ayoub & Khaled Beydoun, Executive Disorder: The Muslim Ban,

Emergency Advocacy, and the Fires Next Time, 22 MICH. J. RACE & L. 215, 220 (2017).

3

Michael D. Shear & Helene Cooper, Trump Bars Refugees and Citizens of 7

Muslim Countries, N.Y. TIMES (Jan. 27, 2017), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/

us/politics/trump-syrian-refugees.html.

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THE INTERSECTION OF

RACE AND RELIGION

Ch. 15

Muslim-majority countries if they were “religious minorities,” i.e., not

Muslim.

4

As civil rights activist Abed Ayoub and law professor

Khaled Beydoun explain, “While the plain language of the Executive

Order did not expressly identify Islam or Muslims as the specific

targets of the immigration restriction, the religious composition of

the seven states combined with the exception for refugees that are

‘religious minorities’ (within their respective states) made it

tantamount to a Muslim Ban.”

5

Is Trump’s portrayal of Islam and his

attempt to prevent Muslims from entering the country an example of

racism? Religious animus? Both? Neither?

Consider as well that in September 2025, Trump spoke to the

UN General Assembly in New York City and, during his remarks,

criticized the City of London’s Muslim mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan. Trump

said, “I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible,

terrible mayor, and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed. . . . Now

they want to go to sharia law. But you are in a different country, you

can’t do that.”

6

There was no evidence that Sir Sadiq Khan had

attempted to implement sharia law in the city at any time.

7

Is

Trump’s false accusation an example of racism? Religious animus?

Both? Neither?

Many might be tempted to deny that the examples above are

species of racism. The intuition might be that the term “Muslim”

refers to those who follow Islam—a religion. Accordingly, “Muslim”

would be a religious designation—not a racial category. In this view,

any violence or inequitable treatment that Muslims (or people

thought to be Muslim) experience would be properly understood as

religious discrimination—not racial discrimination.

4

Ayoub & Beydoun, supra note 2, at 225.

5

Id. When Joe Biden was elected President in 2020, he repealed Trump’s travel

ban. However, Trump used his reelection to the presidency in 2024 as an opportunity

to expand the immigration restriction from his first term. To that end, in June 2025,

Trump issued a proclamation that barred individuals from nineteen countries from

traveling to the U.S. Margy O’Herron & Doug Rand, Trump’s Entry Bans Aren’t Really

About National Security, BRENNAN CTR. FOR JUST. (Aug. 14, 2025), https://www.

brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/trumps-entry-bans-arent-really-about-

national-security. While many of the newly banned countries were Muslim-majority,

many others were simply locat ed on the African continent. As one set of analysts

concluded, “President Donald Trump’s proclama tion . . . is cloaked in the language of

national security but is not tailored to further that goal. Instead, it seems calculated

to bar populations the president has stigmatized or vocally vowed to exclude, including

Muslims, Haitians, Venezuelans, and Africans.” Id.

6

Trump Says London Wants ‘to Go to Sharia Law’, BBC (Sept. 23, 2025), https://

www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3qxrgl05lo.

7

See id. Analogously, when Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim, was running to

be New York City’s mayor in 2025, detractors, without evidence, also accused him of

intending to implement sharia law in the city if he won the election. Lauren Jackson,

Why Zohran Mamdani Isn’t Shy About Faith, N.Y. TIMES (Nov. 2, 2025), https://www.

nytimes.com/2025/11/02/briefing/why-zohran-mamdani-isnt-shy-about-faith.html.