Identities are reinforced by outsider-given labels

Evidence

It is impossible to ignore the enemy–friend binary. Attempts to move beyond it are always self-conscious; they produce a kind of double vision. In the very act of building their own communities and public identities, American Muslims must take into account the prejudices and expectations of an imagined, non-Muslim observer. As a result, new distinctions between Self and Other are constantly woven into Muslim American self-definitions. The irony of disciplinary inclusion is the extent to which it turns phobic and philic sentiments into the very architecture of identity formation. It constructs Muslim enemies even as (or precisely because) it stipulates the qualities of Muslim friends. Disciplinary inclusion encourages the Muslim friend to control and marginalize the Muslim enemy, a contest that unfolds in the Self, the family, the community, the nation-state, and the transregional diaspora. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 709 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A name can create the phenomenon it labels by supplying a brand identity; Anti-Muslim prejudice shapes Muslim-American identity formation from within — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 709; Self-certainty requires recognition from the other (+11 more)

Related

• Anti-Muslim prejudice shapes Muslim-American identity formation from within (similarity 0.87)
• Enemy and friend categories are mutually constructed within identity (similarity 0.85)
• Hostile public scrutiny becomes internalized as the architecture of Muslim American identity (similarity 0.81)
• Islam in America operates as a political identity of otherness beyond religion (similarity 0.80)
• Muslim identity is real but never the sole or primary form of social self-understanding. (similarity 0.79)
• Labeling some Muslims ‘moderate’ marginalizes all others as its necessary counterpart. (similarity 0.79)
• Post-war American identity structurally excluded Islam as foreign (similarity 0.79)
• Muslim identity cannot be reduced to religion alone (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Anti-Muslim prejudice shapes Muslim-American identity formation from within #exemplifies (0.85) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 709
• Self-certainty requires recognition from the other #corroborates (0.82)