one can imagine several low cost PR INTENDED benefits: it looks progressive, it seems slightly fashion forward, it probably appeals to a certain 'hip' demographic, and so on. — Bitter Crank

Yep. Sports Illustrated can pat themselves on the back for those progressive multiculturalism points earned.

My understanding is that at least part of the point is that it is not against islam, only against certain extremist interpretations of islam such as wahabi. So it sends a message that it is possible to be a good muslim without being a joy-killing wahabi. — andrewk

That's what I took it to mean. The point would be much better made by muslim women. They could have an entire issue of muslim women posing for the cameras, if there are muslim women who agree.

Is that woman a muslim?

Well, I readily acknowledged that it was a sloppy OP. I won’t do that again.

Anyway, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, yourself, and I can distinguish between an American Muslim Sports Illustrated model and an Islamic terrorist. Unfortunately, for many in the country this distinction is apparently a little blurry. It seems to me that people like Dr. Jasser politicize opportunities like this to promote their political ideology and to some degree exploit this blurriness or bigotry. Of course, Sports Illustrated is politicizing their swimsuit issue as well.

For me, I suppose the issue is not so much with politicizing but with being true to the underlying values that you’re promoting in politicizing issues. Why isn’t Dr. Jasser celebrating this event rather than condemning it for allegedly glorifying Islamic honor culture? It literally illustrates a Muslim American integrating with America culture. The burkini she wears violates traditional modesty norms of the groups he opposes and is culturally synchronistic. It would be hard to argue that she’s not honoring her traditions in spirit.

This is not unlike the NFL anthem protests in that rather than acknowledging the real nature of the protests, it was twisted by those wishing to undermine the issue to being about disrespecting the flag.

I’ve never seen a black lives matter protest but a couple of years ago, while driving through a busy intersection, I saw a blue lives matter protest. It takes at least two to play the identity politics game.

Yeah, I can see how some could be offended by that. Even more so by the pic in SI if that woman is not muslim.

...

I’m pretty damned liberal. — creativesoul

It’s easy to imagine how some could be offended. I’m not sure what you mean by stating that and ending the post with a declaration of liberalism.

If the model were only pretending to be Muslim that would certainly be disingenuous of her and the publication, and as a consequence possibly somewhat tarnished, by association, the image of what they were trying to portray positively. You might credit them with some integrity.

It's all good. The op's structure raised some alarms for me at first. It seemed, to me, like a trojan horse post. Where you broadcast one idea (this would be Jasser's) and sandwich it between distancing paragraphs. Posts like that are a way of seeing if there's any takers for the main idea, while retaining plausible deniability, if not.

It seems to me now, you weren't doing that. I apologize for misconstruing your intentions.

Interesting. I would have never guessed. I reread the OP just now with this in mind and I suppose that I can see it.

You have a admirable skepticism.