Muslim immigrants preferred strained whiteness arguments over an easier Blackness claim

Evidence

Black Muslims, already racialized through ideas about skin color and slavery, became an exceptional threat through their association with a racialized Islam. Indeed, Arab Americans and South Asian Americans are linked to African Americans through this shared racialization of Islam. Thus, it is to blackness that Muslims are racially assigned, yet it is to whiteness that immigrants generally aspire for citizenship rights and class mobility. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 211 (#expands, via linked claim)

As I have demonstrated in this book, racial difference is not neutral. Nor is it stable. Rather, race is a dialectic process of construction that creates an “other” who is inferior. Meanwhile, what constitutes “White” changes over time to secure Eurocentric Christian power. As legal scholar Cheryl Harris highlights, “The possessors of whiteness were granted the legal right to exclude others from the privileges inhering in whiteness.” Consequently, each wave of new immigrants attempted to escape subordination by claiming inclusion in Whiteness and supporting exclusion of Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, and Mexicans. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 1066 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Non-white South Asian immigrants could obtain citizenship by passing as Black; Muslims are racially assigned to blackness while immigrants aspire to whiteness. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in…, 211; Earlier immigrants argued their own whiteness by distancing from Iranians — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 33 (+5 more)

Related

• Immigrant Muslim petitioners chose whiteness claims over easier Black identification. (similarity 0.92)
• Muslims are racially assigned to blackness while immigrants aspire to whiteness. (similarity 0.89)
• Islamic identity rendered immigrants non-white in citizenship cases regardless of legal test (similarity 0.87)
• Whiteness is a shifting construction that immigrants seek by excluding others (similarity 0.85)
• Islam functionally disqualified citizenship applicants from whiteness regardless of method (similarity 0.84)
• Islam was not associated with whiteness, blocking Muslim naturalization (similarity 0.83)
• Islamic identity exceeded skin color in rendering Arabs non-white for citizenship (similarity 0.83)
• Whiteness by law was defined as Christian, excluding Muslims from citizenship (similarity 0.83)
• Courts treated Islam, not skin color alone, as the disqualifying factor for citizenship (similarity 0.82)
• People who seem white can be raced non-white on the basis of Islam alone. (similarity 0.82)
• The 1924 Asiatic Barred Zone placed nearly all Muslims outside admissible whiteness (similarity 0.82)
• Converting to Islam causes white people to be reracialized as non-white (similarity 0.81)
• Earlier immigrants argued their own whiteness by distancing from Iranians (similarity 0.81)
• Arabs gained whiteness-status in 1943 while Muslims generally remained excluded because Islam signified non-whiteness. (similarity 0.81)
• Sustained connection to Islam, not geography or phenotype, determines racial inclusion as Muslim. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Muslims are racially assigned to blackness while immigrants aspire to whiteness. #expands (0.87) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 211
• Whiteness is a shifting construction that immigrants seek by excluding others #expands (0.80) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 1066
• Earlier immigrants argued their own whiteness by distancing from Iranians #responds-to (0.75) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 33
• Converting to Islam causes white people to be reracialized as non-white #complicates (0.75) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 89
• Muslim Americans occupy a liminal racial position above African Americans #corroborates (0.75)
• Racialized Muslim identity likely blocks immigrant Muslims from full citizenship benefits. #complicates (0.72)