Religious beliefs once darkened the perceived skin color of Catholics and Jews

Evidence

Initially limited to mainline Protestantism, American Christian identity later expanded to include Catholics, albeit after decades of anti-Catholic discrimination. Jews, who are considered White today, were not socially White when their Eastern European immigrant ancestors arrived on America’s shores more than a century ago, leading to significant anti-Semitism. At a time when American national identity was firmly rooted in Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, both Catholics’ and Jews’ religious beliefs effectively darkened their skin color and imputed to them inferior biological traits. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 164

Jews, who are considered White today, were not socially White when their Eastern European immigrant ancestors arrived on America’s shores more than a century ago, leading to significant anti-Semitism. At a time when American national identity was firmly rooted in Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, both Catholics’ and Jews’ religious beliefs effectively darkened their skin color and imputed to them inferior biological traits. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 164

Categorization

• CANDY: The image of religious belief literally darkening skin is a crisp, tweetable fact that reframes ‘Whiteness’ as institutional rather than biological.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Immodesty article lineage on Catholic/Jewish becoming White — this is the Whiteness-of-religions scholarship thread.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 164