Settlers claim self-evident racial markers for differences they admit no outsider can perceive

Evidence

“Come here, you,” he said. “You’re a wee Fenian from the south; you know nothing. I’m telling you,” he asserted, “you can tell a Catholic. They’ve got their eyes too close together.” He went on to explain in some detail the inferiority and deficiencies of the Catholic population, but what struck me even at the time was the conviction with which he maintained the visual self-evidence of ethnic or racial difference even while admitting that the evidence would not be perceptible to any outsider. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 2051

Categorization

• CANDY: A vivid, tweetable vignette of racial fabrication: the boy asserts eyes-too-close as a racial tell while conceding no outsider can see it.
• SEED: Everything Wrong (and Right) with Telling: how groups fabricate legibility systems when phenotype can’t do the sorting work — applicable to caste, class, or other boundary practices.
• XREF: connects to: Sacralized politics racializes others to make their rights violatable — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 107; Racial identification is reified even when one denies it — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 32; Colonial race was judged by conduct and affiliation rather than appearance (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Colonial race was judged by conduct and affiliation rather than appearance #contradicts (0.85)
• Racial identification is reified even when one denies it #expands (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 32
• Racial groups are perceived as natural kinds though they are artifacts #corroborates (0.80)