Lighter skin and Westernized names let some Muslims pass as white

Evidence

For Arabs who are racially classified as white, they lose this status when they wear the hijab. It is clear in the stories here that the women interviewed were not accustomed to these racial encounters before they wore the hijab. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 201 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Maryam, a Syrian American, told me she passed for white before she decided to wear the hijab. She grew up in a small Midwestern town where hers was one of only a few Muslim and Arab families. Growing up, she said her family was never overtly religious. They used to celebrate the major Muslim holidays, but other than that, culture played a more prominent role in her family’s everyday life than religion. Maryam did not have Muslim friends in high school, but at college in Chicago, she began to meet other Muslims, and this strengthened her interest in Islam. As a result, she started to wear the hijab, which is when she recognized her status as white beginning to change. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 145 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Because there are very few countering representations of Muslims as normal, law-­abiding, patriotic American citizens, the dominant narrative of Muslims as terrorists, misogynists, and sexual predators who are antifeminist and anti-­American is definitive. These cultural practices are seen as essentialized, inherent characteristics of Muslim bodies. For many Muslims, these labels are applied when they are identified as Muslim through visual clues like skin tone and clothing or nonvisual clues like having a Muslim name. Religious clothing that has acquired racial meaning racializes bodies in a similar way to skin tone. The hijab signifies foreignness and provokes the assumption that those who wear these symbols are “others” who are not American and not white. The hijab symbolizes a threat to Western feminist ideals and is associated with the forced submission of Muslim women to Muslim men (Razack 2008). But for Muslim men and women who do not wear religious signifiers, their Muslim names also racialize them even if they are phenotypically white. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 91 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Non-black Muslims perform anti-black racism to claim proximity to whiteness. — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 442; Whiteness by law was defined as Christian, excluding Muslims from citizenship — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 150; Courts racialized Muslim identity using skin color and the one-drop rule. — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 186 (+22 more)

Related

• Muslim Arabs move away from whiteness regardless of actual skin tone (similarity 0.94)
• The hijab overrides whiteness as a racializing agent on any wearer. (similarity 0.90)
• Arabs classified as white lose that status upon wearing the hijab (similarity 0.90)
• Hijab converts white-passing women into racialized outsiders (similarity 0.89)
• Muslim identity gets racialized through names and clothing, not only skin tone (similarity 0.88)
• Converting to Islam or wearing the hijab causes loss of whiteness privileges (similarity 0.88)
• Muslim identity ejects Arabs from whiteness and strips them of its material benefits (similarity 0.88)
• Lighter skin and Christian identity secured citizenship privileges that darker or Muslim Arabs lacked (similarity 0.88)
• People who seem white can be raced non-white on the basis of Islam alone. (similarity 0.88)
• Removing the hijab restored women’s ability to pass for white (similarity 0.88)
• Arabs were classified white for citizenship so they could be distinguished from ineligible Asians (similarity 0.88)
• The hijab functions like skin tone by marking bodies as racial others (similarity 0.87)
• The hijab signals foreignness so strongly it overrides ethnicity and skin tone (similarity 0.87)
• Wearing the hijab is read as surrendering whiteness and citizenship standing (similarity 0.87)
• Muslim names alone can racialize phenotypically white people (similarity 0.87)

Broader Connections

• Arabs classified as white lose that status upon wearing the hijab #corroborates (0.80) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 201
• Wearing the hijab strips Arab women of their perceived whiteness #corroborates (0.80) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 145
• Muslim names alone can racialize phenotypically white people #corroborates (0.70) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 91
• Muslim Americans are racialized even when visibly white, so racialization must include cultural traits #corroborates (0.70) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 88