Anti-Muslim racism collapses diverse names, skin tones, dress, and nations into one imagined enemy.

Evidence

Because there are very few countering representations of Muslims as normal, law-abiding, patriotic American citizens, the dominant narrative of Muslims as terrorists, misogynists, and sexual predators who are antifeminist and anti-American is definitive. These cultural practices are seen as essentialized, inherent characteristics of Muslim bodies. For many Muslims, these labels are applied when they are identified as Muslim through visual clues like skin tone and clothing or nonvisual clues like having a Muslim name. Religious clothing that has acquired racial meaning racializes bodies in a similar way to skin tone. The hijab signifies foreignness and provokes the assumption that those who wear these symbols are “others” who are not American and not white. The hijab symbolizes a threat to Western feminist ideals and is associated with the forced submission of Muslim women to Muslim men (Razack 2008). But for Muslim men and women who do not wear religious signifiers, their Muslim names also racialize them even if they are phenotypically white. Therefore, it is important to examine all the ways that racialization occurs, particular those that are not inspired by phenotypes. Furthermore, we must begin to examine gendered forms of racialization rather than relying on the notion that every body is racialized equally and uniformly. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 70 (#expands, via linked claim)

This baseline forms what is now widely known as Islamophobia, a term that spurs the unseeing of Muslims like Mohamed and Kalsoum for who they truly are, in exchange for the blanket cover of terror suspicion. … Neither age nor impoverishment, emaciated bodies that have worked too late in life and still-developing minds that have lost innocence too soon, mean more in this war than religion. Islam, a faith undressed of its rich meaning and normative complexity, has been cloaked with a blanket of suspicion that now envelops its adherents. Anywhere and everywhere. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 148 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Robinson’s work is a magisterial exploration of race, its evolution from pre-capitalist to capitalist eras, and the Black radical tradition. As noted above, he theorizes that racism applied specifically to Africans produced anti-Black racism to extract labor much as it produced anti-Indian racism in the so-called “jewel in the crown” from which it extracted several trillion dollars. The point is that races reflect the ideological needs of the racist. As such, it stands to reason that new races will coalesce and emerge as part of a complex interaction between racism and a subject population based on a history of being set apart from whiteness. This is what has happened with Islam. The practice of racism, particularized against Muslims as Islamophobia, has given rise to the identity of Muslims as a racial group and Islam as a race. Furthermore, one of the reasons scholars have preferred to refer to Muslims as racialized rather than as members of a race is because the group is heterogenous; many in it already have other ethnic characteristics. Yet surely “Muslim” can be a racial identity because identities based on race are always an amalgam and assemblage of constituent parts for any group. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 61 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Muslim identity gets racialized through names and clothing, not only skin tone — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 70; Islamophobia has coalesced Muslims into a distinct racial group and Islam into a race. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 61; Racializing enemies as boundless Muslims justifies war against diverse peoples worldwide. (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Muslim identity gets racialized through names and clothing, not only skin tone #expands (0.90) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 70
• Islamophobia reduces diverse Muslim individuals to a blanket presumption of terror suspicion #exemplifies (0.88) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 148
• Islamophobia has coalesced Muslims into a distinct racial group and Islam into a race. #expands (0.85) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 61
• The terrorist and the migrant fuse into one racialized Muslim type. #exemplifies (0.85) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 33
• British Muslims were reduced to terrorists or apologists, collapsing into one stereotype. #exemplifies (0.85) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 450
• Islam comes to function as a race through racecraft that erases internal ethnic differences #corroborates (0.85) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 516
• Racializing enemies as boundless Muslims justifies war against diverse peoples worldwide. #expands (0.82)
• Islamophobia constructs a stigmatized Muslim identity through dehumanizing stereotypes rooted in Orientalism. #corroborates (0.82) — Goleen Samari, Islamophobia and Public Health in the…, 28
• Cultural racism targets Muslims’ beliefs and traditions as if they were inherited essence. #expands (0.80)
• Globalized racism circulates racialized regionalisms imagining the Muslim world as interconnected. #expands (0.80) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 46
• Orientalism converted Muslim identity from a religion into a race. #expands (0.80) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 161
• Anti-Muslim racialization is unstable, contested, and co-produced with anti-racism #qualifies (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 193