The moment of being mistaken for Muslim is a direct lesson in racialization’s power

Evidence

I elaborate a racial phenomenology in which the Muslim is understood not only as a totalized biological body but also as a cultural and social entity constructed within a number of discursive regimes, including those of terrorism, fundamentalism, patriarchy, sexism, and labor migration. By invoking this idea of racial phenomenology, I examine bodies that appear in the visual register as characteristics of race and as performances of characteristics that are read as racial. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 97 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

In the emerging Muslim racial scheme, this potential is found in the bodies of those who are read as Muslim based on phenotype, dress, and bodily comportment, as well as religious belief and practice, and then essentialized as potential terrorists. In the biological metaphor of naturalization, cultural and social traits can be transmitted—that is, terror and its ideology are understood as socially and culturally learned and simultaneously internalized in the body. The metaphor becomes quite literal when the body is used as a weapon or instrument of terror. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 408 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Muslims are racialized by reading terror as learned and simultaneously embodied — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in…, 408; Islam’s racialization shifted from visible markers to belief itself as stealth fears grew — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 262; Muslims were racialized through cultural signifiers rather than phenotype alone — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in…, 106 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Muslim racialization merges learned cultural traits with bodily essentialism #expands (0.84)
• Muslim racialization operates through visual perception and performed characteristics across discursive regimes #qualifies (0.78) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 97
• Muslims are racialized by reading terror as learned and simultaneously embodied #complicates (0.75) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 408
• Muslim identity gets racialized through names and clothing, not only skin tone #exemplifies (0.75) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 70
• Islam’s racialization shifted from visible markers to belief itself as stealth fears grew #complicates (0.72) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 262
• Muslims were racialized through cultural signifiers rather than phenotype alone #complicates (0.72) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 106
• Muslim racialization is structural and persists with political utility #expands (0.72) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 480