Anti-Muslim prejudice shapes Muslim-American identity formation from within

Evidence

It is impossible to ignore the enemy–friend binary. Attempts to move beyond it are always self-conscious; they produce a kind of double vision. In the very act of building their own communities and public identities, American Muslims must take into account the prejudices and expectations of an imagined, non-Muslim observer. As a result, new distinctions between Self and Other are constantly woven into Muslim American self-definitions. The irony of disciplinary inclusion is the extent to which it turns phobic and philic sentiments into the very architecture of identity formation. It constructs Muslim enemies even as (or precisely because) it stipulates the qualities of Muslim friends. Disciplinary inclusion encourages the Muslim friend to control and marginalize the Muslim enemy, a contest that unfolds in the Self, the family, the community, the nation-state, and the transregional diaspora. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 709

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to moral panic literature and Cohen’s framework of ‘frightened subject’ — the mechanism of projected identity formation resembles what the reader is tracking across chapters. — connects to: Performing Americanness forces Muslims to downplay or conceal their faith — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 343; It required losing a son in a Muslim land to prove Muslim Americanness — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 350; Muslim Americans bear collective guilt for unrelated Muslim terrorists — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 346 (+19 more)
• DEFINE: Defines ‘disciplinary inclusion’ — the concept that phobic and philic sentiments are woven into identity architecture.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 709