Egyptians read black skin as contradicting cultural and linguistic Egyptianness

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

During the Second World War, teachers went from Guadeloupe to Fort-de-France to correct the examinations of candidates for the baccalaureate, and, driven by curiosity, I went to the hotel where they were staying, simply in order to see Monsieur B., a philosophy teacher who was supposed to be remarkably black; as the Martinicans say, not without a certain irony, he was “blue.” One family in particular has an excellent reputation: “They’re very black, but they’re all quite nice.” One of them, in fact, is a piano teacher and a former student at the Conservatoire in Paris, another is a teacher of natural science in the girls’ academy, etc. The father was given to walking up and down his balcony every evening at sunset; after a certain time of night, it was always said, he became invisible. Of another family, who lived in the country, it was said that on nights when there was a power failure the children had to laugh so that their parents would know that they were there. On Mondays, very carefully got up in their white linen suits, certain Martinican officials, in the local figure of speech, “looked like prunes in a bowl of milk.” — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 995 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Slave trade’s Egyptian imprint was cultural rather than biological; Physical blackness was seen as contradicting Egyptian national identity.; Egyptian intellectuals increasingly racialized identity against African societies (+5 more)

Related

• Cultural and religious practices can racialize a body just as skin tone does (similarity 0.84)
• Racialization operates through cultural traits and social interactions, not only physical cues. (similarity 0.82)
• Physical blackness was seen as contradicting Egyptian national identity. (similarity 0.81)
• Racial identification is learned, not observed in skin color. (similarity 0.81)
• Cultural attributes can be racialized even when skin tone matches whiteness (similarity 0.81)
• Cultural traits like language, clothing, and religious practice can racialize a group. (similarity 0.80)
• Egyptian racial thought blended medieval stereotypes with European civilizational concepts (similarity 0.80)
• Egyptian racial constructions of blackness hardened mid-century. (similarity 0.80)
• Color becomes the judgment criterion regardless of education or attainment (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval Europeans did not view dark-skinned Africans as naturally inferior. (similarity 0.79)
• Racialization can proceed from cultural traits without any phenotypic difference (similarity 0.79)
• Racialization mutates with the power interests that institutionalize it, not fixed phenotypes. (similarity 0.79)
• Racialization shifts with the political interests of those in power (similarity 0.79)
• A medieval haircut could mark a man as betraying his ethnic community (similarity 0.78)
• Muslim Americans are racialized even when visibly white, so racialization must include cultural traits (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Cultural and religious practices can racialize a body just as skin tone does #corroborates (0.50) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 89
• Egyptians conflated Nubian, Sudanese, and Ethiopian identities in racial terms #expands (0.45)
• Education and refinement could qualify blackness in Antillean social judgment #qualifies (0.40) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 995