Digital Mind 🧠

🪵 The Threshold

The hijab triggers routine searches while skin tone only does in crises

Properties2
tagsja-picks, definitional_content, singleton, xref, category/causal-relationships
aliases@selod_forever_2018, loc. 292

4 min read

The hijab triggers routine searches while skin tone only does in crises

Evidence

The surveillance of beauty is another way that Muslim American women who wear the hijab are surveilled for their cultural practices. Whiteness has become a marker of beauty and privilege both in the United States as well as in countries that make up the southern hemisphere, such as India (Hunter 2011). This is evidenced by the increased interest and use of skin lightening creams both in the United States and internationally. Hunter (2011) refers to “racial capital” as a material benefit people possess based on their skin tone. In a racialized society, the lighter one’s skin tone, the more access one has to economic resources such as jobs or social networks (Glenn 2009; Hunter 2011). Muslim women who wear the hijab were told wearing it made them ugly; they are also racialized for their beauty. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 292 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Comparing the experiences of Muslim women who wear the hijab to those who do not wear it demonstrates how clothing can become a racial marker for Muslim women because it triggers surveillance. Women who did not wear the hijab had very different experiences while flying. Samira, a twenty-five-year-old Palestinian American who worked as a domestic violence advocate, told me she was stopped and searched at the security checkpoint when she wore the hijab but has no longer been “randomly” searched at airports since she stopped wearing it. Experiences like this suggest that the hijab is what motivates TSA agents to stop and search Muslim women. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 224 (#expands, via linked claim)

There is also room to understand that race is not simply about skin tone; culture can also race bodies. Garner and Selod argue, “The process of racialization entails ascribing sets of characteristics viewed as inherent to members of a group because of their physical or cultural traits. These are not limited to skin tone or pigmentation, but include a myriad of attributes including cultural traits such as language, clothing, and religious practices” (2015: 4). This targeting of cultural attributes and practices as racialized markers of difference is especially salient in the case of Muslims in America. Furthermore, culture is often gendered. For us to truly uncover how bodies acquire racial meaning, it is important to understand how the process of racialization is gendered and has gendered consequences. For example, religious practices, such as gender segregation in mosques, are treated as evidence of the misogyny of Muslim men rather than understood within the context of religious doctrine. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 89 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: Hijab searches are performative security rituals, not genuine threat checks. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 297; Wearing the hijab, not skin tone, triggers routine airport stops and searches. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 308; Ordinary fashion choices become racial markers on hijabi bodies — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 412 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

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