State surveillance and propaganda work in concert to produce systemic anti-Muslim racism

Evidence

The deployment of state power to surveil, investigate, prosecute, and deport immigrant Muslims works in concert with an influential and well-funded Islamophobia industry to produce systemic anti-Muslim racism. Aggressive propaganda campaigns defaming Islam, Muslim leaders, and Muslim organizations enable selective, racialized national security enforcement to occur with negligible public opposition. Indeed, it was not until Trump’s 2017 Muslim Ban that a critical mass of Americans realized the extent to which Islamophobia had infected the political system at the highest levels. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 959 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The American government has also played another role in producing the Muslim first identity by categorizing all Muslims indiscriminately through its policies. For example, state policies like the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), which required Muslim men to register with the state, and Donald Trump’s proposed travel ban have both targeted Muslims arbitrarily. South Asians and Arabs living in the United States who identify as Muslim are seen as potential threats to the state. While some may respond by downplaying their religious identity, many react by strengthening an identity that is under attack. As a result of these factors, secondand third-generation South Asian and Arab Muslims may find themselves associating first and foremost with their religious identity rather than one based on ethnicity. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 105 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: National Geographic travel journalism was the leading channel imparting anti-Arab racism — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 216; Anti-Muslim propaganda videos drew mainstream security officials as participants; Islamophobic propaganda about mosques seeded hearings and counterterror surveilling of Muslim communities — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 697 (+24 more)

Broader Connections

• State surveillance and private Islamophobia propaganda reinforce each other into systemic racism. #corroborates (0.98) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 959
• Racializing Muslims as threats sustains a surveillance state with gendered effects #corroborates (0.93)
• State surveillance policies intensify rather than suppress Muslim religious identity #complicates (0.76) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 105
• State surveillance policies push Muslims to strengthen a targeted identity #complicates (0.75) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 137