The hijab functions like skin tone in racializing Muslim women’s bodies.

Evidence

Muslim women felt that their status as white depended on whether they wore the hijab. The Arab Muslim women I interviewed were cognizant of a stark shift, from being able to pass for white to being viewed as a racial other, inciting the gazes of their fellow citizens and surveillance of their bodies. In post-9/11 society, the hijab works in similar ways to skin tone to further distance Muslims from whiteness. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 89

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s stated priority on how surveillance lands differently on men vs. women.
• DEFINE: Shows race as performative and contingent on visual markers — the garment-as-race mechanism is the definitional core of how surveillance racializes.
• SEED: A removable marker doing the work of permanent phenotype — the hijab as detachable race — is a strong angle for an essay on race as situational performance.