Shared connection to Islam, not color, now anchors Muslim racialization

Evidence

If we start with the assumption, as discussed in Part I, that race is not real, is not a fact, that there is no biological basis for it as most critical race scholars have come to understand, then race is a fiction and a specter that only appears to exist, but is a product of racism. The ideology of racism uses racecraft— a set of tools and practices—to justify the treatment of a group of people as different and subordinated based on some shared difference. The difference is given meaning by racism. It does not exist prior to racism. For Africans brought to the United States, their differences as Wolof, Fulani, Mandinka, Yoruba, Fon, as so on were erased in a process that dehumanized and homogenized them first into slaves and then “Black” so that their mistreatment based on shared African ancestry could be justified. For the Islamicized/Muslims, ethnic differences are similarly being erased in a process that renders the connection to Islam the most meaningful marker of difference, a difference from non-Muslims and a difference from whiteness. … As such, white or white-passing individuals who might evade racial regulation become subject to it as soon as they are Islamicized, regardless of whether they believe in Islam as a religion or not. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 516

Categorization

• QUESTION: This parity with the African erasure of Wolof/Fulani/etc. is exactly the domestic-sharing the reader’s MOC hypothesis probes — does American Islam’s fragmentation block the inversion that shared African ancestry anchored for Black Americans?
• XREF: Directly bears on the reader’s MOC thread — the Wolof/Fulani/Yoruba homogenization into ‘Black’ is the model inversion-capable group; the question is whether Islam’s multi-pathway demography can ever mirror it. — connects to: Islam comes to function as a race through racecraft that erases internal ethnic differences — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 516; Sustained connection to Islam, not geography or phenotype, determines racial inclusion as Muslim. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 107; Islam-as-race emerges only after Muslims coalesce as a racial group — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 110 (+5 more)
• DEFINE: Defines racecraft’s operation: given-meaning-after-racism, not prior difference — the conceptual core the reader needs for the domestic-standing definition.

Broader Connections

• Muslim racialization developed relationally with other minority racializations. #qualifies (0.75) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 833
• Muslims are racialized as a social group rather than a religious one #contradicts (0.72)
• Post-2010 discourse racialized not only visible Muslims but Islam itself as an ideology #qualifies (0.72) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 262
• Current Muslim targeting extends a long history of minority-religion racialization #qualifies (0.72)