Zareena Grewal on Intra-Racism & Post-Colonial Muslim Immigrants

"Although constructions of difference may be transformed as Muslim immigrants assimilate the racial discourse in the US, race is hardly new to them. As post-colonial peoples, they have an intimate history with regimes of white supremacy, which is reflected not only in the ways they construct racial difference in relations to others, but also in the ways they link privilege and colour among themselves. Intra-racism is a term describing the phenomenon of a racialized group that internalizes white supremacy and redirects it at its own members. Since each group contains a wide spectrum of individual skin colours, people are stratified along this colour line. Those individuals at the lighter end of the spectrum are considered more attractive, and are therefore privileged. This privilege is embedded in ways that are not readily apparent, and the benefits, elisions and racial myths that accompany it are re-inscribed in everyday social interactions. Dark skin is stigmatized in parallel, often imperceptible, ways."

from pg. 330 in Grewal, Zareena A.(2009) 'Marriage in colour: race, religion and spouse selection in four American mosques', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 32:2, 323 — 345


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