Racial categories do not require visible physical markers to function legally.
Evidence
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. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 526
Categorization
- XREF: Plessy is the canonical legal precedent the reader will want to set against Muslim ‘look’ cases in the comparison with Aziz. — connects to: Race categories are historical and political, not pigment-based — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 232; States can assert racial projects without ever naming race explicitly — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1718; Visible phenotype is not required for a group to become racialized — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 526 (+16 more)
- SHARE: The detail that Plessy was chosen because he could pass for white is a precise, counterintuitive fact worth sending to a legal-history friend.
Broader Connections
- Race categories are historical and political, not pigment-based
#corroborates(1.00) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 232 - States can assert racial projects without ever naming race explicitly
#corroborates(1.00) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1718 - Visible phenotype is not required for a group to become racialized
#corroborates(1.00) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 526 - Racial identification is learned, not observed in skin color.
#corroborates(1.00) - Heterogeneity does not disqualify a group from holding racial identity.
#complicates(0.95) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 61 - Race alone justified excluding free men of color from citizenship
#complicates(0.95) - State law must actively refuse racist practice rather than claim colorblindness
#complicates(0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 133 - Racial categories are defined purely by ancestor counting, not physical features
#qualifies(0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 718 - Whiteness is a manufactured legal and cultural status, not a biological condition
#complicates(0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1696 - Racial identity has multiple dimensions that statutes fail to specify
#complicates(0.85) — Mareike Riedel, Islamophobia, Racial Discrimination…, 70 - Refusing to count by race masks ongoing structural racial restriction
#complicates(0.85) - Ethnicity need not be essentialist or hierarchical in the way race categories are
#complicates(0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 917 - Racialized legal categories are contradictory yet persist as common sense
#complicates(0.80) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 141 - Surveillance is not colorblind and varies by race, religion, and gender
#complicates(0.80) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 45 - Full citizenship need not require abandoning a distinct racial identity
#complicates(0.80) — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 38