American racism recoded ‘black’ into ‘Arab’ as Jew became Muslim.

Evidence

Between the statements of Gayle Quinnell—a white American woman—in early October and Benjamin Emanuel—an Ashkenazi Israeli man—in early November, one made just before and one just after Obama was elected, we see the transmutation of “black” into “Arab” that was already under way in the preceding months. The black had now become the Arab while, at the same time, the Jew was busy becoming the Muslim. — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 577

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: the four-term swap (black→Arab, Jew→Muslim) as a cartography of how racial positions get reassigned during political realignments — using the 2008 campaign as a case study.

Related

• American racism has recently recoded blacks and Jews into Arabs and Muslims (similarity 0.86)