Surveillance targets identity as intention and practice, not appearance

Evidence

The issue of passing also relays racial authenticity not in matters of cultural performance—in other words, how black, Jewish, or Muslim you are—but in matters of cultural intention. That is, identity is a practice, not just an appearance. In the allegorical context of the show, this shifts the idea of racial visibility to a broad set of traits, from phenotype and appearance to cultural practices and social kinship networks, to reimagine racial targets of surveillance, regulation, and policing. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 383

Categorization

• DEFINE: Useful articulation of the shift from racial appearance to cultural intention as the object of policing.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that counterterror surveillance redefines identity fundamentally from visible trait to practiced intention is genuinely weighty and worth sitting with.