These experiences reveal that the United States is a racialized social system that now allocates different rewards and privileges based on a Muslim identity. It is important to note that a racialized society creates unique experiences based on gender. Muslim American men and women encounter differential experiences in this racialized social system that mark Muslim women as a threat to American values and Muslim men as a threat to national security. The War on Terror has created an era of hypersurveillance and the institutionalization of a racialized Muslim identity, one where the state and private citizens watch and monitor mosques and Muslim bodies. As a result, South Asian and Arab Muslim men's and women's location on the racial hierarchy is shifting based on their racialized religious identity. Although immigrant Muslims and their American-born offspring may have always been viewed as foreigners, now they are suspect and dangerous to society. The current racialization of Muslim Americas has to be understood within the context of American policies, both foreign and domestic, in the War on Terror, but it is also an ideological tool espoused by the state to justify surveillance of Muslims. Thus racializing Muslims as a threat to both cultural values and national security is a necessity in maintaining a surveillance state, and private citizens play an important role in this racialized, gendered surveillance.

XREF: Connects to broader literature on racial formation theory and securitization, echoing how racial categories get constructed and deployed by state institutions.

Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, loc. 346