If wealthy American citizens who happen to be Muslims were killed in riots ...

[Boojatta]

then would anybody consider it reasonable to explain such occurrences by saying that the majority of Americans are Christians, and that the victims hadn't converted to Christianity?

Most news reports interpreted Indonesia’s anti-Chinese riots during 1997-99 as economic-driven incidents, given that Sino-Indonesians are less than 5% of the population, but reportedly control 50% of the national economy. This disparity
became intolerable as Indonesians grew increasingly impatient with their worsening economic plight after mid-1997. Anti-Chinese sentiment fueled by cultural and
religious differences also ignited Indonesia’s riots, given that 87% of Indonesians are Muslims while the majority of the Chinese never converted to Islam (...)

Link:
http://www.overseaschineseconfederation.org/conference/files/146.pdf