The more religious a Muslim appears, the less American they are perceived to be

Evidence

This line of questioning is one of the ways Nabeel is marginalized from being seen as a normal college student and a typical American. He recognizes the discrepancy in how Christian or Jewish students his age are not grilled about their religious practices because they are seen as the norm in America. Because a Muslim identity and an American identity are treated as if they are contentious, the more religious a Muslim seems to be, the less American they appear in the public’s eyes. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 450

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supplies the religion-vs-race mechanism the reader’s guiding question asks about: religiosity reads as foreignness because Muslim and American identities are treated as opposed. — connects to: Belief that Christians make the truest Americans fluctuates with societal tensions — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 196; Some lawmakers equated devout Muslim practice with waging war on the United States
• DEEPTHINKING: The inversion — where increased devotion to one’s faith maps onto decreased belonging to the nation — is a counterintuitive racialization mechanism worth sitting with.