Racial identity is dynamically co-created, not a fixed biological given

Evidence

Racial identity is more than a mere performance of culture, more than the fact of skin color, and more than phenotype. It is also shared history, an ancestry, and community connection, a bricolage of internal and external practices, and subjectivation. It is dynamically co-created by the practices of gender, sexuality, and class. Kwan’s concept of cosynthesis captures the missing dynamism of the categories themselves. Thus to be a queer Muslim woman is to have one’s sexuality, gender and race constantly created in relation to each other—one could say that one’s sexuality is Muslim, one’s gender is Muslim, one’s Muslimness is queer and gendered. Identity in general, racial or otherwise, is not a fixed thing. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 94

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sets up the core definitional move: race as cosynthesized identity rather than phenotype, which underpins the racecraft thesis.
• XREF: Directly comparable to Aziz’s ‘Racial Muslim’ argument about how Muslim identity gets legally racialized; also parallels Kwan’s cosynthesis concept from critical race theory. — connects to: Race being social means it consists of identity practices, not biology. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 89; Racial identity is a dynamic bricolage, not a fixed biological given.; Multiracial identity is fluid across a lifetime unlike stable monoracial identity — Tatiana I. Zamora and Amado M. Padilla, Making sense of conflicting messages of…, 133 (+10 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how does cosynthesis differ from intersectionality in explaining racial formation of Muslims?

Broader Connections

• Racial identity is a dynamic bricolage, not a fixed biological given. #expands (0.97)
• Racial identity forms in settings and social exchanges, not just within individuals. #expands (0.92)
• Race categories result from social assignment, not biology #corroborates (0.90) — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 27
• Race is socially constructed rather than biologically real but has powerful social effects #corroborates (0.90) — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 113
• Races are produced by racism, not by biology #corroborates (0.88) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 76
• Racial categories were administratively imposed rather than biologically fixed #corroborates (0.87) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 216
• Multiracial identity is fluid across a lifetime unlike stable monoracial identity #exemplifies (0.86) — Tatiana I. Zamora and Amado M. Padilla, Making sense of conflicting messages of…, 133
• New racial identities can form in response to racism itself #exemplifies (0.85) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 51
• Race is a political category disguised as a biological one #corroborates (0.84) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 1179
• Racial subjection is never complete because imposed identity provokes internal redefinition #expands (0.83) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1681
• Black racial identity is externally imposed before it is self-chosen #qualifies (0.80) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 340