the blind spot in the american left - and i've written about this before - is that it interprets everything through race, because that's america. as a canadian, i can see that. we don't have that blind spot, here. so, an american leftist can not equate a muslim with a christian, because they're not seen as white. forget the fact that islam and christianity come from the same place in the world; muslims are the oppressed, and christians are the oppressors, due to the white supremacy of christianity and the brownness of muslims, which is the foundational and fundamental characteristic, not the basic reality that moderate islam is substantively more psychotic than the craziest christian right-wingers you'll find anywhere around here. that is how hammtramck happened; it was due to the racial blindspots on the american left. worse, it's exposing a sort of underbelly on the american left that's been apparent for a long time: if you are the religious right, and you want to infiltrate and co-opt the left, you do it with black or brown people. these activists won't see you as a religious right-winger, they'll see you as an oppressed minority.