Cultural practices become racialized when they are essentialized as innate to Muslims
Evidence
Surveillance of culture is racialized when cultural practices are essentialized as innate to Muslims, subjecting them to intense scrutiny. For example, any abuse that Muslim women experience at the hands of Muslim men is reduced to religious cultural values perpetuated by Islam. The Taliban’s treatment of women in Afghanistan is an example of this culturally fueled racism. Muslim women were constructed as in need of saving from Muslim men, which in turn justified the invasion of Afghanistan (Razack 2008 Abu-Lughod 2013). Another example of this is the misconception that Muslim women are forced to wear the hijab. Private citizens chastise Muslim American women who wear the hijab because for them it represents subservience to patriarchy, rather than being understood as a choice. Wearing the hijab is treated as a cultural aberration to American societal values and individuals who wear it are understood as antimodern and antifeminist. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 274
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines ‘surveillance of culture’ as racialization — the mechanism by which a faith practice (hijab) gets treated as innate, racial trait.
- XREF: Directly supports the reader’s guiding question of how religion gets racialized — connects to Beydoun’s account of ‘Muslims as racial group.’ — connects to: Racism functions as practices that ascribe and legitimate social positions; Questioning multiculturalism opened a path from policy critique to blaming Muslims — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 360; The term ‘Turk’ replaced ‘Saracen’ and carried ethnic, political, and religious meaning — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 144 (+41 more)
- ADDENDUM: Connects to the immodesty piece — the hijab as a ‘cultural aberration’ claim echoes cross-cultural moral panics over dress signaling identity.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 274