A Different Kind of Brown: Arabs and Middle Easterners as Anti-American Muslims

Abstract

The growth of nonwhite/nonblack ethnoracial minority groups, especially Latina/os, Asians, and Arab/Middle Easterners, is redefining the United States racial landscape. These groups, which defy straightforward racial classification and occupy different positions in the racial order, challenge narrow conceptualizations of race based on skin color and phenotype. Interviews with 53 Egyptian and Egyptian Americans reveal the existence of a brown racialization that simultaneously homogenizes, yet differentiates, brown-skinned ethnoracial groups. Their narratives indicate a brown ethnoracial category differentiated by ethnic, national origin, and religious differences. In problematizing the homogenization of this broad brown ethnoracial category, Egyptians emphasize the racialization of Islam as a key differentiating factor distinguishing them as a particular kind of brown. This research demonstrates racialization as a layered process in which race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion combine in unique ways in defining Arabs and Middle Easterners not only as brown and foreign but also more specifically as anti-American Muslim terrorists.