25 Years of the “War on Terror” and the Erasure of Black Muslims

This year marks twenty-five years since the launch of the so-called War on Terror.

We are sharing this reflection during Black History Month because the War on Terror is not only a story of foreign policy and global conflict but a continuation of the long domestic war against Black communities. Black history is not separate from this moment. It is central to understanding how surveillance, policing and state violence expanded under the language of “security,” and how Black Muslims have lived at the intersection of every system built to control, criminalize and erase.

Much of the public reflection focuses on foreign wars, national security and the rise of Islamophobia against Muslim communities broadly. What is rarely named is how deeply these policies were built on frameworks of anti-Black racism and how Black communities, particularly Black Muslims, bore the brunt of state violence long before and long after 9/11.

For many Black people, the War on Terror did not begin in 2001. It simply expanded.

In the years following 9/11, national Muslim organizations rushed to emphasize Americanness. Campaigns centered assimilation. We were told to highlight how Muslims were “just like” white neighbors. That we loved this country. That we were harmless. That we belonged.

What this narrative quietly required was distance from Black resistance. Distance from the long history of Black Muslims organizing against white supremacy. Distance from movements that named policing, incarceration and surveillance as violence.

Distance from solidarity with other oppressed communities. Belonging was framed as proximity to whiteness rather than connection to struggle. And in that process, Black Muslims were rendered invisible or inconvenient.

Policies created in the name of fighting “domestic terrorism” overwhelmingly targeted Black and Indigenous communities. Programs like Countering Violent Extremism, later rebranded as Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP), functioned as surveillance pipelines into masjids, schools and community spaces. The same rhetoric used to justify mass incarceration, gang databases and stop-and-frisk simply gained a new label: extremism prevention.

Black movements were criminalized under the banner of national security. Standing Rock water protectors were framed as threats. Black activists were labeled “Black Identity Extremists.” COINTELPRO never ended. It evolved. Anti-BLM protest laws surged across states. Police budgets ballooned. Community organizing became “radicalization.” The War on Terror expanded the tools already perfected on Black communities.

When Islamophobia rises, Black Muslims are hit first and hardest. Not only are we surveilled as Muslims.  We are policed as Black people. We are criminalized through systems that were never dismantled. Yet when anniversaries come, when panels are hosted, when statements are released, Black Muslims are rarely centered. We are spoken ABOUT, rarely spoken with. Our histories of resistance are omitted.  Our current realities ignored.

The narrative becomes one of immigration, airports and foreign policy while the domestic war against Black life continues uninterrupted.

When non-Black Muslim spaces reflect on the War on Terror without naming anti-Blackness, something dangerous happens. They reproduce the same assimilation politics that allowed state violence to grow. They mourn harm while refusing to confront the systems that made it possible. They talk about surveillance while staying silent on policing. They talk about Islamophobia while avoiding racism. They talk about community safety while ignoring prisons, deportations and deaths.

This isn’t accidental. It is the result of choosing proximity to power over solidarity with the most impacted.

At Tending Futures, we believe healing and liberation are inseparable from truth.

The War on Terror cannot be understood without naming…

• Its roots in anti-Black policing frameworks

• Its expansion of surveillance already used on Black communities

• Its role in criminalizing resistance

• Its disproportionate harm to Black Muslims

Until anti-Blackness is confronted within Muslim spaces, real justice will always be postponed. Commemoration without accountability is just another form of erasure.

So, where do we go from here?

We move forward by…

• Centering Black Muslim voices in organizing and remembrance

• Connecting Islamophobia to the broader systems of racial control

• Rejecting assimilation as safety

• Building solidarity rooted in shared struggle

Liberation will not come from proving we belong to a system built on our disposability. It will come from dismantling it together.

If this reflection resonated with you and you want to support the work of telling fuller truths, resourcing Black and Indigenous healing, and building toward collective liberation, consider becoming a monthly donor. Your support directly sustains Tending Futures’ cultural work, organizing and community care.

Together, we tend what the world has tried to erase.