Cultural and religious practices can racialize a body just as skin tone does

Evidence

There is also room to understand that race is not simply about skin tone; culture can also race bodies. Garner and Selod argue, “The process of racialization entails ascribing sets of characteristics viewed as inherent to members of a group because of their physical or cultural traits. These are not limited to skin tone or pigmentation, but include a myriad of attributes including cultural traits such as language, clothing, and religious practices” (2015: 4). This targeting of cultural attributes and practices as racialized markers of difference is especially salient in the case of Muslims in America. Furthermore, culture is often gendered. For us to truly uncover how bodies acquire racial meaning, it is important to understand how the process of racialization is gendered and has gendered consequences. For example, religious practices, such as gender segregation in mosques, are treated as evidence of the misogyny of Muslim men rather than understood within the context of religious doctrine. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 89

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the core racialization concept: racial meaning attaches to cultural traits like clothing and religious practice, extending beyond phenotype.
• QUESTION: Worth tracking against Beydoun/Rana: how does this religion-as-race account differ from or overlap with the notion of ‘Muslim as a legal race’?
• recurring: this claim recurs 3 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Racism functions as practices that ascribe and legitimate social positions; Egyptians read black skin as contradicting cultural and linguistic Egyptianness; The racial epidermal schema replaces the corporeal schema under white regard — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 395 (+24 more)

Broader Connections

• The hijab functions like skin tone by marking bodies as racial others #exemplifies (0.95)
• Cultural traits like language, clothing, and religious practice can racialize a group. #corroborates (0.90)
• Racialization operates through cultural traits and social interactions, not only physical cues. #corroborates (0.90)
• Cultural practices become racialized when they are essentialized as innate to Muslims #expands (0.85) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 274
• Racialization can proceed from cultural traits without any phenotypic difference #corroborates (0.85) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 88
• Ordinary fashion choices become racial markers on hijabi bodies #exemplifies (0.85) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 412
• The hijab rather than skin tone triggers racializing surveillance of Muslim women #exemplifies (0.85) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 292
• Muslim Americans are racialized even when visibly white, so racialization must include cultural traits #expands (0.85) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 88
• Religious identity can be racialized when signifiers trigger profiling #corroborates (0.80)
• Converting to Islam or wearing the hijab causes loss of whiteness privileges #expands (0.80) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 261
• Cultural racism substitutes cultural traits for biological ones in racializing groups. #corroborates (0.75)
• Cultural racism substitutes cultural difference for biological difference as a racial logic #corroborates (0.75)
• Muslim Arabs move away from whiteness regardless of actual skin tone #expands (0.70)
• The hijab signals foreignness so strongly it overrides ethnicity and skin tone #builds-on (0.60) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 349