Muslim public condemnations of terrorism failed to clear the community of suspicion.

Evidence

Previously living relatively apolitical lives, many immigrant Muslims suddenly felt an urgency to become civically engaged. Some spearheaded public relations campaigns to salvage the sullied image of Islam. Others went so far as to join the US military to serve in Afghanistan and Iraq. And nearly every American Muslim organization repeatedly condemned the September 11 attacks and terrorism ad nauseum. Their condemnations, both after the September 11 attacks and each time terrorism occurred in a Western country, fell on deaf ears. Every Muslim would be suspect until and unless each could individually prove loyalty to the United States. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 965

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘loyalty can only be proven individually, never collectively’ dynamic echoes similar perpetual-suspicion dynamics documented for Japanese Americans during WWII and for Black Americans today — connects directly to Aziz’s broader thesis.
• SEED: Article angle: the paradox of performative loyalty — when a group’s every self-exculpatory gesture is structurally incapable of being believed, because the suspicion is not about behavior but identity.