State profiling legitimizes fellow passengers to report Muslims as suspicious

Evidence

While Saleem felt it was a shared Middle Eastern heritage that resulted in their profiling, other interviewees reveal that this is not limited to just Middle Easterners but also includes South Asians because it is the religious identity that is targeted. The calling out of Muslim names for additional security screening serves to further associate Muslim bodies with terror in front of their fellow passengers, creating an inequitable flying experience. This public display of security segregates passengers into two groups: those who are a potential threat, and those who are worthy of protection from this threat. The fact that nearly all the names called out for additional security were Muslim names supports the claim that the Selectee and No-Fly lists target Muslims. In this instance, American Airlines performed security in front of some passengers by racially profiling its Muslim clientele. It is no surprise, then, that passengers feel justified in reporting Muslims as suspicious to flight attendants on airplanes; they take their cues from the state. When the state participates in racially profiling passengers based on a religious identity in a public fashion, citizens feel justified in reporting their fellow passengers as suspicious for doing things like speaking Arabic or wearing the hijab when flying. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 197

Categorization

• XREF: Directly anchors the Global Racial Enemy slot — state surveillance licenses civilian surveillance, a cascade effect worth mapping against COINTELPRO informant dynamics. — connects to: State surveillance escalates with how visibly Muslim a person is — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 380; Muslim men are placed on TSA lists based on name similarity to suspected terrorists. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 210; Airport profiling of Muslims is systemic and state-institutionalized rather than random — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 285 (+8 more)
• DEFINE: Illustrates how a religious identity (Islam) gets racialized: the profiling target is religious, but operates as race on the body, applying across Middle Eastern, South Asian, and other Muslim-background bodies.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 197

Broader Connections

• A citizen can trigger state surveillance of a Muslim simply by reporting them #expands (0.70) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 341
• Vague state anti-terror cues make citizens rely on stereotypes to profile Muslims #expands (0.55)
• Airport surveillance publicly signals to the population that Muslims are potential terrorists #expands (0.45) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 338