This week, the House of Commons heritage committee enters the second phase of M-103, the motion to combat Islamophobia, and begins a study on systemic racism and religious discrimination in Canada.

Its report card will hopefully contain two outcomes: Strategies to combat systemic racism, and a definition of Islamophobia that will place it in the context of Canadian laws as well as overall racism in the country.

For the latter, committee members would do well to examine a new paper out of Rice University in Texas titled, “The Racialization of Islam in the United States: Islamophobia, Hate Crimes, and ‘Flying while Brown.’ ”

“We often hear that because Muslims are not a race, people cannot be racist for attacking Muslims,” sociologist and study author Craig Considine is quoted saying in the University’s media statement. “This argument does not stack up. It is a simplistic way of thinking that overlooks the role that race plays in Islamophobic hate crimes.”

Islamophobia is not colour blind.

In the U.S., some 30 per cent of Muslims describe themselves as white, 23 per cent as Black, 21 per cent as Asian, 6 per cent as Hispanic, and 19 per cent as other or mixed race, according to the Pew Research Center in Washington.

Yet, nearly all Muslim racial or ethnic groups have higher odds of reporting one or more types of perceived discrimination than white Muslims, a 2016 study showed.

“Islamophobia does not belong in the realm of ‘rational’ criticism of Islam or Muslims; it is often discrimination against people who look different to the majority of U.S. citizens,” Considine says in the paper.

If “Driving While Black” is anti-Black racial profiling, “Flying While Brown” is anti-Muslim racial profiling leading to humiliating searches and detentions.

In any case, both are ineffectual at stopping crime or terrorism, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Canada has seen hate crimes against Muslims increase by 253 per cent in four years, according to a Statistics Canada report, with 45 crimes reported in 2012 and 159 in 2015.

I doubt the haters were religious scholars who had a rational critique of Islam.

Yet, attempting to condemn Islamophobia itself is seen as an attempt to stifle free speech and any criticism of the religion.

Casual anti-Islamic expressions are dotted with annoyance of visible religious markers such as head scarves on women, or an intangible fear of Sharia law, supposedly barrelling down on poor, unsuspecting us to blanket our society in darkness.

This fear that Muslims are conspiring to either destroy or dominate the West explains the hostile reception to M-103, which was a motion to speak out against discrimination.

This, although Liberal MP Iqra Khalid who brought forward the motion said quite clearly, “M-103 is not an attempt to create Sharia. I vow to oppose any law that threatens our multicultural society.”

The non-binding motion passed in March this year.

Reasonable people would shun the idea of violence against anyone based on their race or religious belief. But what is a fair critique of religion and what constitutes hate speech?

I see Islamophobia as anti-Muslim racism against predominantly brown and black-skinned people but with an added edge. Not just of superiority but also the righteous anger of fending off a menacing culture incapable of compatibility with others. It’s the conflation of all Muslims with terrorists, or impatience with cultural practices, or anger against those seen as hailing from a backward culture incapable of debate within itself.

In its 1997 report “Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All,” a British left-leaning think tank, The Runnymede Trust, defined Islamophobia as the unfounded and close-minded fear and/or hatred of Islam, Muslims or Islamic/Muslim culture.

It identified eight components of Islamophobia, one of which included seeing it as violent, threatening or supportive of terrorism. Another included viewing it as primitive or barbaric or sexist. Using anti-Muslim hostility to exclude or discriminate against Muslims was, of course, one of the components.

Stereotyping has a lot to do with this.

Considine found that out of more than 1,000 Hollywood films depicting Arabs, 932 negatively stereotyped them. For example, Arabs/Muslims were constructed as the ominous figure: “the bearded, dark-skinned, turban-wearing terrorist guided by perceived archaic religious practices.”

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This would help explain why a dark-skinned, turban-wearing Sikh man such as NDP leadership hopeful Jagmeet Singh had to fend off a ranting Islamophobe at a campaign rally. Or why a Inderjit Singh Mukker, a 53-year-old Sikh taxi driver near Chicago was beaten and bruised by a man who called him “Bin Laden” and told him to go back to his own country.

You don’t have to be Muslim to be vilified. Just being Muslim-like is enough. This is textbook racialization.

Shree Paradkar writes about discrimination and identity. You can follow her @shreeparadkar