Surveillance itself racializes target groups into a suspicious race

Evidence

Those perceived as such were “targeted by harassment or violence on the assumption that ‘they’ embody a potential for terrorism and [were] thus threats to U.S. national security,” and therefore “deserving of discipline and punishment.” Scholar and public intellectual Moustafa Bayoumi argued that what was happening was a process of “racing religion.” He analyzed the special registration program launched in the aftermath of 9/11 to argue that the program was “not necessarily a nefarious plot to racialize Islam” but a “bureaucratic and cultural response to political turmoil.” While it may not have been a selfconscious attempt to discriminate against Muslims, in practice it was a color-blind security measure that had the effect of turning Muslims into a race. As race scholar Arun Kundnani and I have argued, surveillance is a mechanism of racialization that turns the target group into a suspicious “race.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 75

Categorization

• XREF: Kundnani citation and the ‘surveillance as racialization mechanism’ claim should be catalogued as additive evidence to Aziz’s security-state and Rana’s race-of-terror theses. — connects to: Blacks experienced white surveillance as panoptic, driving total self-regulation. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 900; The surveillance industry’s need for targets drives the racialization of Muslim bodies — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 458; Security practices racialize suspect groups without anyone involved believing they are racist (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• The surveillance industry’s need for targets drives the racialization of Muslim bodies #corroborates (0.92) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 458
• A self-perpetuating surveillance industry depends on racializing Muslims as terrorist threats. #corroborates (0.90) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 479
• The War on Terror racialized Muslim bodies to justify their surveillance #corroborates (0.88) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 29
• Surveillance registration programs racialize Arabs and Muslims by codifying essentialized categories #exemplifies (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 552
• Surveillance derives from country-of-origin priority lists that racialize Muslim identity #corroborates (0.85)
• Security registration programs racialize groups by concretizing essentialized categories #exemplifies (0.85)
• Security practices racialize suspect groups without anyone involved believing they are racist #expands (0.82)
• Airport surveillance does not reduce terrorism but builds racial hierarchies #qualifies (0.75) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 480