Muslim American men self-silence politically out of fear of surveillance

Evidence

Aziz is unable to talk about his political beliefs or his views on U.S. foreign policy because he worries he will be misunderstood or misrepresented. He is cognizant that although he is an American citizen, he has been marked as a foreign other and a potential threat. His allegiance can be questioned easily because of his religious identity. For Muslim men, an increase in their religiosity can also incite suspicion about Muslim men. Aziz gets uncomfortable when he is asked questions about his religion at work because he worries that he is being “bucketed” as a type of Muslim, the “bad” kind. Aziz self-surveils through silencing himself because of the anxiety of surveillance. The inability to contribute to public discourse is a form of political disempowerment. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 423

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Connects to Beydoun’s concept of the ‘Muslim ban’ era and the broader Muslim surveillance literature the reader already mapped.
• SEED: The ‘bucketed as the bad kind of Muslim’ line is a vivid angle for an essay on how racialization creates intra-community status anxiety.

Related

• Muslim American men feared interviewing because hypersurveillance made them distrust strangers (similarity 0.88)
• Muslim men’s invisibility as Muslims breeds fear of association with terrorism (similarity 0.87)
• Muslim men self-silence in public to avoid being classified as terrorists. (similarity 0.87)
• Muslim men self-censor to avoid being associated with terrorism. (similarity 0.87)
• Muslim men self-censor politically because state surveillance targets them, unlike women watched by strangers (similarity 0.86)
• Surveillance fear makes Muslims internalize discipline and self-police (similarity 0.85)
• Surveilled Muslim Americans internalize the state gaze through self-censure and modified dress (similarity 0.85)
• Surveillance causes Muslims to discipline their own behavior preemptively (similarity 0.84)
• Fear of unpredictable surveillance makes Muslim Americans surveil themselves, disempowering them. (similarity 0.84)
• Surveillance makes Muslim men strategically perform loyalty to manage others’ suspicions (similarity 0.84)
• FBI surveillance drives Muslim congregations to self-police and Americanize (similarity 0.83)
• Surveillance-induced self-censorship strips Muslim men of citizenship’s rights (similarity 0.83)
• The USA PATRIOT Act produced the surveillance society that made Muslim bodies constantly monitored (similarity 0.83)
• Racialized surveillance gets internalized by Muslim American children as self-discipline (similarity 0.83)
• State hypersurveillance disempowers Muslim men and lowers their political participation (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Surveillance causes Muslims to discipline their own behavior preemptively #corroborates (0.85) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 231
• Surveillance makes Muslim men strategically perform loyalty to manage others’ suspicions #expands (0.80) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 447
• Surveillance leads Muslims to police their own actions and dress #expands (0.80) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 157
• Surveillance pressure makes Muslim men erase rather than transform their identity #corroborates (0.75) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 438
• FBI surveillance drives Muslim congregations to self-police and Americanize #expands (0.70) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 684
• Hostile public scrutiny becomes internalized as the architecture of Muslim American identity #corroborates (0.70) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 709
• Self-concealment by fearful Muslims inadvertently advances Islamophobia’s erasure mission #expands (0.65) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 540
• American tolerance of Muslims conditioned on their political quiescence and departure. #expands (0.60) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 374
• Racialized surveillance gets internalized by Muslim American children as self-discipline #expands (0.60) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 546