Racial ascription can override visual passing and self-identification alike

Evidence

In summary, racism deployed against a discernible group based on some shared difference creates a racial identity. The reiterative process of racial differentiation into an identity through the rituals of racism eventually gives rise to a race. Even if that race is fictitious and spectral, it appears to exist. Racial identity is complex given the variations within racialized groups. Muslims do not look phenotypically any particular way. Neither do Latinx people and neither do Black Americans. It behooves us to remember that Homer Plessy was not visibly Black but chosen specifically because he could pass for white. In order to violate the Jim Crow laws segregating train cars, he had to reveal himself to the train conductor as a Black man, thereby triggering his arrest. White segregationists could not always tell a Black person by looking at them, and Plessy might have just passed into Whiteness sitting in the whitesonly car but for the self-revelation of his Black racial identity. Similarly, Muslims cannot always be seen. Conversely, someone who is seen as Muslim may not be Muslim. A person can be ascribed as Muslim and Islamicized even while vociferously refusing that identification as did Barack Obama who considered being called a Muslim a slur. Others become Islamicized when they “come out.” — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 526

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the core racecraft thesis the reader is tracing to compare with Aziz’s Racial Muslim argument — the Plessy parallel is the payoff moment. — connects to: Black American identity fuses external ascription with self-identification — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 341; Racial self-identification can conflict with claiming discrimination status — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 105; Racial identity functions as practice and intention, not just appearance (+4 more)
• SHARE: The Plessy self-revelation detail — that he had to disclose his Blackness to the conductor in a whites-only car — is a perfect tidbit for anyone doing race/law work.
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Black American identity fuses external ascription with self-identification #qualifies (0.80) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 341
• Racial identity functions as practice and intention, not just appearance #contradicts (0.80)
• Racial self-identification can conflict with claiming discrimination status #expands (0.75) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 105
• Racial categorization of the same person varies by time, place, and context #qualifies (0.75)