Color-blind security measures can turn religious groups into a race

Evidence

Scholar and public intellectual Moustafa Bayoumi argued that what was happening was a process of “racing religion.” He analyzed the special registration program launched in the aftermath of 9/11 to argue that the program was “not necessarily a nefarious plot to racialize Islam” but a “bureaucratic and cultural response to political turmoil.” While it may not have been a selfconscious attempt to discriminate against Muslims, in practice it was a color-blind security measure that had the effect of turning Muslims into a race. As race scholar Arun Kundnani and I have argued, surveillance is a mechanism of racialization that turns the target group into a suspicious “race.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 75

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘racing religion’ as a concept for how security policy racializes a religious group.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 75
• XREF: connects to: When believers cannot be visually identified, lawmakers criminalize the religion wholesale.; Color-blind security practices racialize without any actor believing they are racist — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 576; Racialization operates through ostensibly colorblind security practices, not overt racism — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 576

Broader Connections

• Color-blind security practices racialize without any actor believing they are racist #expands (0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 576
• Racialization operates through ostensibly colorblind security practices, not overt racism #expands (0.92) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 576