I don’t understand how the woke consensus came to be that explaining repressive norms or policies in terms of religion is taboo and explaining them in terms of culture is acceptable.
simple: blaming Islam would implicate American Muslims, blaming local culture would not.
It’s actually slightly surprising everyone was so willing to jump on the anti-Muslim bandwagon after 9/11 instead of the anti-Arab bandwagon, especially considering that was exactly what Osama bin Laden was attempting to do.
Well let’s be honest here, it wasn’t Arab Atheists that did 9/11.