COINTELPRO surveillance methods were redeployed to racialize Arab Americans as terrorists

Evidence

Building on this work, I have argued elsewhere that the project of terrorist racial formation occurred in the context of empire in crisis. The national security state designated Arab Americans as “terrorists” or “potential terrorists” through the counterinsurgency logic of the Cold War era that saw threats abroad and at home in similar ways. Operation Boulder, a modification of the infamous COINTELPRO project used to target the New Left and activists in the civil rights, black power, American Indian, Puerto Rican, anti-war, and other groups was deployed to target and racialize Arab Americans. … Moreover, the global economic crisis and the crisis of US imperialism in the late 1960s and 1970s created the conditions, I have argued, for two simultaneous racial projects: the criminalization of blacks and the terrorization of Arabs (and later Iranians, Muslims, and South Asians). The “black criminal” and the “brown terrorist” were birthed in the womb of a national security state seeking to quell threats to the restoration of US economic and political hegemony through the logic of counterinsurgency. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 249

Categorization

• XREF: Directly builds on chapter 11’s observation that “counter-subversive measures built for leftists get redeployed against Arab and Muslim Americans” — here is the originating instance (Operation Boulder/COINTELPRO). — connects to: Operation Boulder redeployed COINTELPRO counterinsurgency methods to racialize Arab Americans — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 249; The War on Terror recycled COINTELPRO-era racial policing tactics against Muslims — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 263; Surveillance registration programs racialize Arabs and Muslims by codifying essentialized categories — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 552 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• The War on Terror recycled COINTELPRO-era racial policing tactics against Muslims #corroborates (0.95) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 263
• The War on Terror racialized Muslim bodies to justify their surveillance #expands (0.90) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 29
• Surveillance machinery built for the Cold War was repurposed against Muslim activists #corroborates (0.88)
• Surveillance registration programs racialize Arabs and Muslims by codifying essentialized categories #expands (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 552
• Post-2001 Arab Americans shifted from invisible to a government-sanctioned suspect class #expands (0.85)
• The surveillance industry’s need for targets drives the racialization of Muslim bodies #expands (0.82) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 458
• Surveillance derives from country-of-origin priority lists that racialize Muslim identity #expands (0.82)
• Surveillance itself racializes target groups into a suspicious race #expands (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 75
• The sleeper-cell threat erased distinctions between Arab Muslims and American citizens in public suspicion #expands (0.75) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 85
• Racialized surveillance itself strips Muslims of substantive citizenship #expands (0.75) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 658
• Surveillance and indefinite detention techniques were first tested on Arab-Americans. #qualifies (0.72) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 992