ABSTRACT
In the space of three days in 2015, two race hate crimes in London were recorded on mobile phones. Both events were uploaded online and went viral. The attacks had much in common: they both took place on London transport and both involved Muslims as victims. One other commonality in both attacks, which is of interest to this chapter, is the role of language, race and religion. The two events were race hate crimes, with highly offensive slurs and expletive-laden insults aimed in one case at a disabled pensioner and in the other at a heavily pregnant woman. Among the insults were frequent references to terrorism. Thus, wars abroad were conflated with individuals in the UK, as both wars and the victims of the race hate crimes involved Muslims. Both race hate crimes were based on prejudice towards race and religion, as well as the added dimension that both victims were highly vulnerable because of disability in one case and gender/pregnancy in the other. For this reason, vulnerability emerges as a key aspect in this chapter and this includes not only physical aspects but also linguistic practices within Islamophobic hate crimes.
