Race displaced religion as modern society’s dominant ordering discourse

Evidence

My theoretical framework takes the systemic racialization theories one step further to argue that the American racial hierarchy is more accurately described as a racial-religious hierarchy. Phenotypical race in American society has been and continues to be a central factor in the placement of people in a racialized social system. However, religion also plays a dispositive role in racialization. This has always been true for Blacks, who were racialized as heathen and inferior based on biblical stories labeling them as the children of Ham cursed into slavery. It was also true for religious minorities such as Jews, Catholics, and Mormons in the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth and for Muslims today—albeit for different reasons and with different material harms. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 127 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Race replaced religion as modernity’s dominant public organizing frame — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 54; Modern scientific racism displaced religion, obscuring Islamophobia as racism; Modern scientific racism displaced religion from the race concept. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in…, 156 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• American hierarchy is a racial-religious system with religion as dispositive #complicates (0.78) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 127