Outside in the Radioactive Frontiers: Theorizing from a Black Muslim Place in the Diaspora

Coined by Delice Mugabo (2016), “Anti-Black Islamophobia” describes a complex interplay of racialization that encompasses state and interstate forces, such as countering violent extremism and the war on terror, alongside everyday policing and surveillance practices. As a result, the Black Muslim subject is rendered alien to both citizenship and humanity, viewed as excessive and in need of containment (Mugabo, 2016, p. 166). Despite its significance, Anti-Black Islamophobia remains underexplored in Critical Race scholarship. Existing analytical frameworks often fall short of capturing the nuanced ways in which diasporic Black Muslim communities navigate and challenge these intersecting systems of securitization and racialization. This paper aims to expand the established frameworks within Critical Race Studies, Black Studies, and Critical Muslim Studies to better reflect the lived experiences of diasporic Black Muslim communities. We will analyze Anti-Black Islamophobia while acknowledging the complex and compounded structures of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia in the Global North. Additionally, we will consider the varied positionalities of Black Muslim communities in relation to the “afterlife of slavery” (Sharpe, 2016), as well as contemporary postcolonial inheritances and the experiences of settlement, immigration, and refugeehood in the Global North. Through this exploration, we seek to illuminate the distinct challenges and resistance strategies employed by diasporic Black Muslim individuals, ultimately enriching the discourse on race, ethnicity, racialization and belonging.