Non-black Muslims perform anti-black racism to claim proximity to whiteness.

Evidence

Non-black Muslim Americans, who tend to be the gatekeepers in prominent Muslim advocacy, political, and religious institutions, are largely wed to community models bound to Arab or South Asian ethnocentrism and model minority status, and to an aspirational whiteness that too often is expressed in racism toward African Americans, including African American Muslims. Emulating and becoming more proximate to whiteness mandates expression of one of whiteness’s cornerstone traits, anti-black racism, which non-black Muslims have actively performed in order to claim, or attempt to claim, the coveted privileges of whiteness. — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 442

Categorization

• DEFINE: Positions aspirational whiteness as a driver of private Islamophobia — a mechanism that overlaps with structural explanations without being reducible to them.
• XREF: Cross-talk with the reading’s structural/private dialectic: gatekeeping reproduces exclusion privately, which structurally keeps black Muslims out of institutions. — connects to: Non-black Muslims celebrate black Muslims in ways that erase their blackness. — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 420; Institutions exploit black Muslims through erasure, demonization, and delegitimization — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 437; Anti-black racism and Islamophobia fuse to intensify policing of black Muslims. — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 453 (+7 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 442

Broader Connections

• Anti-black racism within Muslim American communities remains unaddressed #expands (0.75) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 436
• Exclusion of black Muslims is routine practice at mainstream Muslim events. #exemplifies (0.70) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 447
• Arabs gained whiteness-status in 1943 while Muslims generally remained excluded because Islam signified non-whiteness. #qualifies (0.65) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 123
• Anti-black racism and Islamophobia fuse to intensify policing of black Muslims. #complicates (0.60) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 453
• Muslim identity ejects Arabs from whiteness and strips them of its material benefits #qualifies (0.60) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 662
• Lighter skin and Westernized names let some Muslims pass as white #qualifies (0.60)
• Muslim Americans occupy a liminal racial position above African Americans #corroborates (0.55)