Bigotry is intersectional. You know damn well what people are trying to say, and what hateful bullshit they’re responding to.

When some redcap uses “Muslim” as a synecdoche for spitting out middle-eastern stereotypes, they’re not engaging in comparative religious criticism, or making some grand philosophical argument. They’re being a racist asshole. Even if the label they use is not a race. If you haven’t noticed - racist assholes love tiny excuses to say ‘what’s so racist about–?!’ whatever dehumanizing caricature they just attributed to some associated label. Like “thugs.” Or “bankers.”

Bankers aren’t an ethnicity… but people screaming about “bankers controlling the media” are definitely talking about an ethnicity.

I mean, do you think Islamophobia is rooted in theological disputes? The Christian nationalists who find common ground between Catholics, evangelicals, Eastern Orthodox, and Jews hate Muslims because of their almost indistinguishable tenets of faith?