A number of studies on discrimination and mental health found that discrimination experienced by Arab Americans who are Muslim since 9/11 is correlated with an increase in psychological stress (Moradi and Hasan 2004; El-Sayed and Galea 2009). Surveillance that is triggered by racialized understandings of bodies creates a hostile environment, which can lead to an increase in hypertension, stress, and depression. There is a psychological cost that young people endure because of their racialization. The term racial battle fatigue, psychological stress responses that people endure from exposure to constant racial microaggressions, could accurately reflect what Muslim Americans go through because of their racialization (Smith, Allen, and Danley 2007).

XREF: Connects to literature on racial battle fatigue and the health effects of discrimination, extending Black racial-stress frameworks to Arab/Muslim Americans.

Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, loc. 419