Phenotype was never the whole basis of the race concept

Evidence

Most scholars of race argue that the ”animalization” of Jews and Moors as irredeemably evil; the creation of ”monstrous races” in the margins of the known world; and the shift to viewing ethnocide as desirable mark the specific formulation of race in the medieval period and that exclusion was a precursor to practices of extermination and genocide (e.g., Fredrickson 2002; Majid 2004). In this moment of early racial thinking, evidence of ”race” visible in bodily comportment, clothing, language, and cultural practices signaled supposedly inherent di√erences located in a Cartesian split between the body and the mind—that is, the body might represent one thing, but the mind could represent something else. This is an important point in the development of the race concept. Phenotype was never really everything; rather, it represented a number of discursive logics that connected culture to appearance, skin color, and all of the features that normally were presumed to stand in for race. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 165

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that race was never purely phenotypic, but always bundled discursive logics connecting culture, behavior, and appearance, reframes the standard modern understanding of racial thinking and is generative for the book’s thesis.
• XREF: connects to: Visible phenotype is not required for a group to become racialized — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 526; Race has no genetic basis yet produces real material consequences. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1112; Race has no scientific basis and is purely social convention — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 98