As this example shows, enemies are often constructed by institutions that have an interest in maintaining power. In medieval Europe, Christianity was the most powerful vessel of power, one that "created and worked through legal institutions, [the] different selves it shaped and responded to, and different categories of knowledge which it authorized and made available." Christian identity was based on what was perceived to be normative, and because black skin functioned as a symbol of sin and evil, light-colored skin was privileged. "Race" was not a concept active in the medieval vocabulary, although bodily difference—including the color and tone of skin—certainly played a role in the formation of identity and in monster-making.

XREF: Connects to Foucault's work on power/knowledge and how institutions shape categories of knowledge to legitimize their authority.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 101