I think that racism is not about the recognition of actual traits. Race is an imaginary schema imposed upon a group, often who bear ethnic similiarities.
In this sense, racism is more about the use of imaginary schema based upon percieved ethnic traits upon a group of people, with the purpose of enforcing or justifying a power structure over such a group.
In this sense, the descrimination against Muslims occurs in a racist context, and can be regarded as a form of racism itself. It is a means through which an ethnic group is descriminated against, while making such descrimination immune from prosecution under racial descrimination laws. This is ironic considering that most of the Niqabis in Australia are Anglo-Saxon converts
The way that racism against people who are blatantly Muslim manifests itself is predominantly not through attacks on the religion itself, but rather racial attacks. When people yell at me or my wife from cars, it is usually racist abuse, like calling me an 'Arab dog' or a 'Wog'. It is rarely 'I reject your assertion of Tawhid' or something related to my religion. I know a sister who is white as snow, but wears the hijab, and had someone yell 'you black slut' in her face.
People who are racist use Islam as an excuse to justify their fears about immigration or racial miscegination or whatever. Attaching Islam to such concerns is a way of shielding themselves from critique, as it is far more acceptable to attack a religion (at least a minority one) than it is to be racist.
Then again, most rights based discourses count religious descrimination as just a problematic thing as racial descrimination.
