Islam in America operates as a political identity of otherness beyond religion

Evidence

Islam in America has never been simply a religion one chooses. From the gaze of the state and society, Islam was and still is an indelible marker of otherness, and in war-on-terror America, it is a political identity that instantly triggers the suspicion of acts of terror and subversion. — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 69

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the core mechanism: Muslim identity as state-recognized marker that triggers suspicion—the structural grounding of the dialectic.
• XREF: Directly parallels Ernst’s psychology of fear and Selod’s surveillance framework in naming how identity is read by the state. — connects to: Muslims suffer hostility for perceived identity beyond any voluntary religious choice. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 96; Muslims are positioned as an external threat against America’s internal enemies.; Islam as identity marker is internationalist solidarity, not Arab nationalism recoded (+16 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 69

Broader Connections

• Islamophobia is refusing Muslims a role in building national identity #expands (0.60)
• Politicizing religion functions as assimilation as well as exclusion #complicates (0.45)
• Muslim inclusion in American civic life comes at the price of disciplined loyalty #expands (0.40)
• Islamophobia is political rather than religious and must be fought politically #expands (0.35) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 576
• Religious identity replaced ethnicity as the marker making Muslim Americans seen as anti-American #responds-to (0.30)