To offer a slightly different perspective...I obviously don't believe that "Muslim" is a race, but to many white-supremacist and Islamophobic groups it may as well be. Islamophobic prejudices don't get applied to White or Asian Muslims in the same way as for Muslims from the Middle East, because people seem to be assessing whether they look like the guys they saw on the news. I want to, for example, bring up the case of an Indian software engineer from Kansas who was killed two years ago: I'd also like to cite Wikipedia's article on Islamophobia, and the section about the relationship of Islamophobia and Racism: SO, the argument I'm putting forth here is this: Muslim people do not constitute a race, but the people who are prejudiced against them (and those who physically attack them) often believe that they do. Using the word 'Muslim' as a weird synecdoche for 'Appears Middle Eastern' is common enough, and I believe that people who hate the nebulous group of 'Muslims' are holding racist beliefs against a race that they have misnamed, and largely imagine to exist. In the case of Roseanna and Amy, I would guess that they have learned Ilhan Omar's name and may be vaguely aware of her nationality, but probably subconsciously conceptualize her religion as her race and act with according prejudice towards the congresswoman. ...Or that's how I think about it, anyway. Do you think I'm maybe not being fair? Honestly, there's a chance I'm assuming too much about Roseanna and Amy. Idk. The idea's out there, I'm curious what you think about it!The suspect in the shooting, Adam Purinton, was drinking at the bar in Olathe, Kansas, at about 7:15PM that night, the Kansas City Star reported. A witness said he yelled “get out of my country” to two of the victims, reportedly saying the men, believed to originally be from India, were “Middle Eastern.”
Some scholars view Islamophobia and racism as partially overlapping phenomena. Diane Frost defines Islamophobia as anti-Muslim feeling and violence based on "race" or religion. Islamophobia may also target people who have Muslim names, or have a look that is associated with Muslims. According to Alan Johnson, Islamophobia sometimes can be nothing more than xenophobia or racism "wrapped in religious terms." Sociologists Yasmin Hussain and Paul Bagguley stated that racism and Islamophobia are "analytically distinct," but "empirically inter-related"
Perhaps debating which adjective best describes a murderer's motives is not the best use of our time. A drunk idiot who shoots two Indian engineers and thinks he got "two Iranians" is probably making some gut-level in-group/out-group generalizations based on appearances. Balbir Singh Sodhi was another victim. Would that his Sikh values of protecting and aiding all human beings were more widely shared. Do we gain anything by calling it racism instead of xenophobia (besides, of course, a rhetorical club with which to intimidate dissenters)? Using the latter label might at least get Roseanna and Amy to pipe down. I think it's possible for someone to see value in their culture and want to protect it without believing that other cultures and their people are inferior. The common shared language, customs, values, and beliefs of people in countries like Japan, Nigeria, Korea, Germany, or China are arguably beneficial to people there. And places like Ireland and Bosnia might show the cost of cultural conflict. I didn't read the article, and the lines you quoted do not make me expect a sophisticated argument from Roseanna and Amy. But they specifically object to "Sharia law" and extravagantly claim "she wants that all here." Would they object so strongly to Padma Lakshmi or Dr. Öz? If you ask me, Roseanna and Amy are wrong because we as humans have so much to gain from migration that it's worth the risk that we will lose something by letting our culture evolve.