Empire is a mutable structure that keeps reconfiguring race.

Evidence

Fifth, empire must constantly reconfigure strategy and battle to win hearts and minds both domestically and internationally. Empire is not a cemented structure but a process; it relies on racism to reproduce itself. Moreover, empire does not automatically produce or secure exploitative and exclusionary racial regimes. This is what explains in large part why “race” is constantly shifting and evolving; why there are projects of race making, unmaking, and remaking. It is not enough therefore to simply state that empire is the crucible of anti-Muslim racism; it is necessary to explain why, how, and when. The imperial terrain on which races are made and unmade is unstable, and our task as scholars is to make sense of how various contingent factors come together at certain moments to produce races but to also to undo particular racial configurations. As scholar-activist A. Sivanandan put it, racism “does not stay still; it changes shape, size, contours, purpose, function—with changes in the economy, the social structure, the system and, above all, the challenges, the resistances to that system.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 105 (#expands, via linked claim)

Race is unstable, flexible, and subject to constant conflict and reinvention. Rather than seeing the present moment —whatever moment that is—as distilling the longue durée of racial politics, we in the United States should recognize that we live in history. Especially in this country there is a desire for instant solutions for problems, even for deepseated conflicts: Just add boiling water, just heat and serve. If the bad news is that there are no quick fixes for structural racism, the good news is that we live in history. We built this society over historical time; we can rebuild it as well. — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 9 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Empire is a contingent process that reproduces itself through shifting racism. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 93; Empire must keep reworking itself and can fail to secure racial regimes — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 105; Race is not fixed but is perpetually reinvented through historical conflict — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 9 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Empire must keep reworking itself and can fail to secure racial regimes #expands (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 105
• Racialization of Muslims is historically discontinuous and empire-contingent. #exemplifies (0.85)
• Race is not fixed but is perpetually reinvented through historical conflict #expands (0.82) — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 9
• Empire produces anti-Muslim racism which in turn sustains empire #qualifies (0.75)
• Empire continues reshaping colonized peoples’ lives long after formal decolonization #expands (0.75) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 36
• Challenging empire is possible because it contains internal contradictions. #expands (0.72)