From Belonging to "Other": The Racial Dynamics of Muslim Identity for White Americans
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According to Husain, when white people adopt markers of Islam, they experience a shift in how others (white people) perceive their racial identity—or, more accurately, how they are perceived as individuals. She notes that in the United States, Muslimness is associated with non-whiteness and foreignness, which disrupts traditional racial categories, particularly within the black-white racial binary that has long structured racial dynamics in the country. This association with foreignness is a form of racialization, where religious identity becomes entangled with racialized perceptions, labelling Muslims as outsiders regardless of their actual race.
The impact of this racialization is evident in the responses of white Muslims who find that their whiteness is "compromised" by their Muslim identity. White Muslim Americans who do not display visible signs of Islam tend to still benefit from assumptions of belonging and adhering to the white community, in other words, to the norm. In contrast, visibly Muslim white Americans often encounter assumptions that they are from outside the United States or are racially "other." For example, Allison describes how, despite being white, she experienced a shift in attitudes from other white people after she reverted to Islam and began wearing the hijab. She went from "belonging" to "stranger," facing encounters that questioned her ability to properly wash her hands, for example, simply because her hijab marked her as foreign, due to the assumption that “others”/foreigners lack the same “civilized” manners as white Americans.
This shift suggests that, within American society, Muslimness is implicitly linked to non-white identities—such as Arab or South Asian—positioning visibly Muslim individuals outside the norms associated with whiteness. This positioning leads to social and cultural repercussions for white Muslims, who may encounter racism disguised as suspicion or curiosity that reflects broader racial stereotypes applied to Muslims.
Moreover, there's this idea that Muslimness can be associated with, or at least accepted, when it comes from black people, as they both fall under the broad category of "other." However, the combination of whiteness and Muslimness is inconceivable as it disturbs the meaning of being white.