The sleeper-cell threat erased distinctions between Arab Muslims and American citizens in public suspicion

Evidence

This is especially significant given that immediately after 9/11, it seemed that Arab and Muslim Americans would be represented sympathetically and Arabs and Muslims would not. However, as the “sleeper cell” threat permeated, all Arab and Muslim identities came to be suspect, and the “good” Arabs and Muslims became those who would help the United States fight Arab/Muslim terrorism—whether or not they were American. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 85

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the discourse of ‘good vs bad Muslims’ and how citizenship gets conditionally granted; parallels arguments about loyalty tests and the suspect insider. — connects to: US counterinsurgency logic fused foreign and domestic Arabs into one terrorist threat; COINTELPRO surveillance methods were redeployed to racialize Arab Americans as terrorists — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 249