Hala Hilwiyat
Institutional oppression in the United States operates as a well-oiled machine, sustained by policy, media, and perpetual war. Indeed, the American empire is a result of violent conquest, slavery, and continual displacement of Indigenous peoples, and it continues to operate with those same imperatives. The legal system, militarized police, private prisons, harsh immigration tactics, and surveillance programs work together to protect the ruling class and its property while suppressing dissent. This apparatus, oiled with the blood of the world’s people, maintains the American empire.
The history of the United States is saturated with cyclical violence formalized through state power, at the behest of the ruling elite through each era. The ruling class readily denounces past atrocities, like the Indian Removal Act or slavery, as relics of ‘the ways of old.’ The ruling class and its capitalist superstructure such as the media and entertainment industry may generally acknowledge that The Indian Removal Act expanded settler territory by brutally expelling and killing Native nations and will quickly castigate slavery as a repugnant failure. However, it seems more of a challenge for them to concede that the legacy of America’s many moral failings support their current systems of power.
Congress members denounce isolated racist remarks or violent acts, proclaiming, “This is not who we are!” Who are we, then? A litany of atrocities from America’s past and present point to a ceaselessly violent settler colony successfully evolved into a bloody empire.
After September 11, the US government exploited public fear to justify mass surveillance and war, rapidly securing vast funding.The USA PATRIOT Act expanded the state’s authority to surveil and detain folks without cause while law enforcement agencies received the go ahead to operate with minimal regulation. Arab and Muslim communities became primary targets.
Similarly, The ‘No-Fly List’ provides a clear demonstration into the racist inner workings of this regime. In 2023, a leak exposed the overwhelming presence of Muslim names which accounted for 98 percent of those blacklisted. No process to request removal of one’s name from the list exists, nor is there explanation provided. This pattern of extrajudicial targeting extended beyond federal agencies and into local police departments. The New York Police Department assembled a surveillance system focused only on Muslim neighborhoods. Police infiltrated student groups and even filed reports on civilians who committed no crimes.
Guantánamo Bay prison holds hundreds of Muslim men, most without trial or charge. US personnel subject detainees to psychological warfare, waterboarding, force feeding, isolation, and other prolonged abuse. Officials selected the site precisely to avoid legal interference! These examples undeniably demonstrate how oppression and torture are baked into American policy, no matter who is sitting in the Oval Office.
Furthermore, immigration enforcement methodically targets working class laborers. Deportation breaks organizing efforts while suppressing wages in order to divide the working class. The constant threat of deportation ensures compliance, creating a more exploitable workforce. People are much less likely to attend protests, write against the crimes of the empire, and defend those getting crucified for correctly denouncing genocide or the litany of other war crimes if they are under increased surveillance. The class benefiting from this arrangement includes employers, landlords, and law enforcement.
Immigration policy is meticulously designed to solidify these hierarchies. Programs like NSEERS (National Security Entry-Exit Registration System), launched under the W. Bush administration, specifically targeted Muslim majority countries, requiring men and boys to register with the government like criminals. Likewise, modern immigration bans disproportionately target Arab and African nations under thinly veiled “security concerns.” Profiling, harassment, detention, and deportation are central to US immigration systems, designed to maintain racial and political hierarchies.
Division and Reinforcement
In contrast, Americans of European descent, including Jewish Americans, experience different treatment from the US government. Jewish Americans’ experience exposes how imperialist interests weaponize protection for some while destroying it for others. Jewish Americans have played major roles in labor rights, civil rights, and anti-war movements throughout US history. While far-right hate crimes against Jewish communities still occur, and must be forcefully condemned without hesitation, they are statistical exceptions rather than systemic policy. Unlike Arabs and Muslims, Jewish Americans are not subjected to mass surveillance, indefinite detention, or state sanctioned violence by the US government.
Instead, the state exploits antisemitism to divide communities, deflecting attention from its role in perpetuating violence. Arabs and Muslims are treated as a permanent fifth column both domestically and abroad, demonized, profiled, and targeted with full state sanction. This distinction reflects how Empire selectively deploys violence to crush those it deems disposable while absorbing others into its machinery of power.
To reinforce its violent actions, the United States also enjoys support from its media industry, despite isolated incidents of so-called celebrity activism. Hollywood functions as a mere extension of state violence. Films, television, and news media shape perceptions by depicting certain groups as threats, prioritizing some lives over others, and amplifying select narratives. Scholar Jack Shaheen discovered more than 900 Hollywood films that portray Arabs as violent, foolish, or unworthy of sympathy. Entire genres reinforce images of perpetual war, racial danger, and law enforcement as heroes. Further, news publications amplify law enforcement narratives and center property loss over human suffering. The media manufactures consent for the next bombing campaign and immigration raid.
Neither the Democratic nor Republican party express any intention to dismantle these systems. Why would they? These systems bolster their status. Some politicians, like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, adopt progressive rhetoric and co-opt revolutionary language but remain aligned with the ruling class. They even dare to call themselves socialists to appeal to a new generation of conscious Americans that know the current state of affairs does not benefit them. As long as systems that oppress and vilify Arabs, Muslims, immigrants and other marginalized people stay in place, there is no liberation or working class solidarity.
Ultimately, our liberation depends on collective action. We must organize and understand our shared struggle as members of the working class. If Arabs, Muslims, South Asians, or any other marginalized group is being targeted and under attack, we are not free. The real solution to our current crisis is a complete dismantling of the empire and violent systems it perpetuates. Only then will we be free.
Hala Hilwiyat is a political commentator with a focus on Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy, and Western Asia.
Sources
ACLU – End Mass Surveillance Under the Patriot Act
ACLU – Racism in Policing and Incarceration
ACLU – Wrongly Legitimatizing NYPD Discrimination
Center for Constitutional Rights – Guantánamo Prison Abuses
Amnesty International – 22 years of justice denied
Human Rights Watch – U.S. Human Rights Failures
Costs of War Project – Brown University
Al Jazeera – ‘Reeks of profiling’: US ‘no-fly’ list appears to target Muslims
The Electronic Intifada – How the media manufacture consent for genocide, with Bryce Greene
Transcript of Reel Bad Arabs – Jack Shaheen
Press TV – US has ‘direct, undeniable’ role in Israeli war crimes in Gaza: Iran
The Guardian – The ugly truth of American violence has never been plainer
