State surveillance made private terrorist jokes feel dangerous and silenced Muslim men

Evidence

Muslim men recalled friends and acquaintances joking around with them about being a terrorist. Because the state surveilled Muslim men, these accusations made them very uncomfortable. Some of these interactions happened at school as well as at work. In these spaces, Muslim men avoided talking too much about religion or politics in an attempt to deflect negative associations of Islam off of their bodies. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 312

Categorization

• XREF: The causal mechanism where state surveillance transforms everyday jokes into threats — men’s specific experience of being watched, answering the reader’s men-vs-women question.