Source: MT Readings, Buckets 5 & 6
Tags: citizenship, racialised foreignness, Orientalism, Islamophobia, Ozawa, Thind, naturalization, Asian exclusion, Japanese internment, virtual internment, Black Panther Party, BPP, survival programs, COINTELPRO, Third Worldism, intercommunalism, self-determination
Bucket 5 traces how US citizenship law has consistently defined belonging through racial exclusion, moving from anti-Asian Orientalism to post-9/11 Islamophobia while maintaining the underlying logic of "looking like the enemy." Bucket 6 examines how racialised communities moved from imposed segregation to chosen congregation, building institutions of resistance, mutual aid, and self-determination. The Black Panther Party is the central case study, but the analysis extends to multiracial coalitions and Third World solidarity.
Orientalism
Edward Said's term for the Western construction of "the East" as exotic, backward, and threatening. In this course, applied specifically to how Asian Americans and later Arab/Muslim Americans are racialised as perpetually foreign.
Perpetual foreigner
The racialisation of certain groups (Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, Latino/a Americans) as fundamentally non-American regardless of citizenship status, birthplace, or cultural assimilation. Leti Volpp's "The Citizen and the Terrorist" analyses this directly.
Ozawa v. United States (1922)
Supreme Court case in which Takao Ozawa, a Japanese American, argued he should be eligible for naturalisation because his skin was white. The Court ruled that "white" meant Caucasian, not merely light-skinned, and denied his petition.
United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923)
Three months after Ozawa, the Court heard Bhagat Singh Thind's case. Thind, an Indian American, argued he was Caucasian (which was anthropologically accurate). The Court reversed its own reasoning, ruling that "white" meant what the "common man" would understand as white, not the scientific category. Together, Ozawa and Thind reveal that "whiteness" was a shifting, politically defined boundary.
Virtual internment (Hatem Bazian)
Bazian's concept for the post-9/11 surveillance, profiling, and social exclusion of Arab, Muslim, and South Asian Americans. Unlike the physical internment of Japanese Americans in WWII, virtual internment operates through invisible mechanisms: watch lists, no-fly lists, infiltration of mosques, and the chilling effect of constant suspicion. The confinement is social and psychological rather than spatial.
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
The first US federal law to restrict immigration based on nationality and race. George Peffer's work on Chinese female immigration shows how exclusion operated through gendered mechanisms before the Act's formal passage.
Japanese American internment
The forced relocation and incarceration of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII under Executive Order 9066. Mae Ngai's analysis includes the lesser-known citizenship renunciation cases, where interned Japanese Americans, under duress, renounced their US citizenship.
The citizen and the terrorist (Leti Volpp)
Volpp argues that after 9/11, the legal category of "citizen" was redefined to exclude those who "look like" terrorists, creating a de facto racial boundary within formal citizenship. People with full legal citizenship could be functionally excluded from its protections.
Self-determination
The principle that communities have the right to govern themselves and define their own political futures. In the course, associated with the Black Panther Party's programme and with Third World liberation movements more broadly.
Survival programs (BPP)
The Black Panther Party's community service initiatives: free breakfast for children, health clinics, food distribution, sickle cell anaemia testing, liberation schools, and more. Framed as "survival pending revolution," these were not charity but political infrastructure.
COINTELPRO
The FBI's Counter Intelligence Program, which targeted the BPP, the American Indian Movement, and other radical organisations through surveillance, infiltration, disinformation, and assassination. Hatem Bazian's "The New Cointelpro" connects this to post-9/11 state repression.
Third Worldism
A political framework that linked the struggles of racialised people within the US to anti-colonial movements in the Global South. The TWLF, the BPP, and Los Siete de la Raza all drew on Third Worldist analysis.
Intercommunalism (Huey P. Newton)
Newton's late-period theory that imperialism had dissolved national sovereignty, making "nationalism" an inadequate framework. He proposed "revolutionary intercommunalism," in which oppressed communities worldwide would build solidarity across borders without relying on the nation-state form.
Deniggeralization of America
A term associated with the Black Panther Party's vision of eliminating the racial caste system, not through assimilation into whiteness but through the destruction of the social category that produced the racial slur. Connected to self-determination and sovereignty.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted citizenship to "free white persons"
The 14th Amendment (1868) and the Naturalization Act of 1870 extended eligibility to people of African descent
Asian immigrants remained excluded, creating a racial hierarchy encoded in law
The question "who counts as white?" became a legal battleground
Ozawa (1922): Ozawa argued his light skin made him "white." The Court said whiteness was a scientific category (Caucasian), not a matter of skin colour. Petition denied.
Thind (1923): Thind argued he was scientifically Caucasian (as an Indian). The Court abandoned its own scientific standard and said whiteness was a matter of "common understanding." Petition denied.
Read together, the two cases show that the legal definition of whiteness was rigged: the standard shifted to exclude whichever group was petitioning
The point for the course is that racial categories are politically constructed, not natural or stable
George Peffer (Week 7): anti-Chinese exclusion operated through gender before it operated through nationality
The Page Act of 1875 targeted Chinese women specifically, presuming them to be prostitutes
Restricting women's immigration prevented family formation and community stability, which was the point
This is a spatial imaginary mechanism (Bucket 2) applied through immigration law
Mae Ngai (Week 7): the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII is the most extreme example of the "looking like the enemy" logic
Ngai's analysis focuses on the citizenship renunciation cases: Japanese Americans who, under the duress of internment, formally renounced their citizenship
The government then used these renunciations to justify denaturalisation and deportation
Demonstrates how the state can coerce people into abandoning their own citizenship, then treat the abandonment as voluntary
The course traces a through-line from anti-Asian racialisation to post-9/11 anti-Muslim/Arab racialisation
The underlying logic is the same: certain racialised bodies are coded as existential threats to the nation
Hatem Bazian (Week 7, "Virtual Internment"): post-9/11 surveillance of Arab, Muslim, and South Asian Americans operates as a form of internment without physical camps
Mustafa Bayoumi (Week 7, "How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?"): the experience of being a "problem" in the US, the constant burden of proving one's loyalty and humanity
(Week 7) Volpp's key argument: after 9/11, the legal category of "citizen" was informally but powerfully redefined
Those who "looked like" terrorists were excluded from the protections and presumptions of citizenship, regardless of their legal status
This created a two-tier citizenship: formal (legal) and functional (social)
Connects to the course's broader argument that citizenship has always been racially stratified
The conceptual distinction is important: segregation is the state's forced separation of groups; congregation is a community's choice to gather and organise
The course argues that resistance movements transform segregated spaces into spaces of congregation, mutual aid, and political power
Founded in Oakland, 1966, by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale
Core programme combined armed self-defence, community service, and political education
Survival programs ("Survival Pending Revolution"):
Free Breakfast for Children Program
Free health clinics
Sickle cell anaemia testing
Liberation schools
Food and clothing distribution
These were political acts, not charity. They demonstrated that the community could provide for itself what the state refused to provide, and they built the organisational infrastructure for broader political struggle
Self-determination and sovereignty: the BPP's platform demanded community control of police, housing, education, and economic development
"Deniggeralization of America": the BPP's term for eliminating racial caste, not through integration into existing structures but through the transformation of those structures
The course asks whether the state's repression of the BPP (and other radical organisations) was about reducing crime or about suppressing political movements
COINTELPRO: the FBI's programme of surveillance, infiltration, disinformation, and targeted assassination against the BPP, AIM, and others
Hatem Bazian (Week 8, "The New Cointelpro"): argues that post-9/11 counterterrorism operations reproduce COINTELPRO's methods against Muslim and Arab American communities
The framing of political resistance as "crime" or "terrorism" is itself a mechanism of racial control
Jason Ferreira (Week 8, "With the Soul of a Human Rainbow"): examines the relationship between Los Siete de la Raza and the Black Panther Party in San Francisco
Third Worldism provided the ideological framework for cross-racial solidarity: the struggles of Black, Latino/a, Asian, and Native American communities were understood as connected to anti-colonial struggles globally
Besenia Rodriguez (Week 8): Newton argued that imperialism had dissolved national sovereignty, rendering nationalism inadequate
He proposed "intercommunalism," in which oppressed communities worldwide would build direct solidarity across borders
This was a theoretical evolution beyond both nationalism and internationalism
(Week 8) Habal's account of Asian American/Pacific Islander radicalisation and the connection to Third Worldism
Demonstrates how individual political consciousness emerges from collective action (connecting back to Bucket 1: action before theory)
(Week 8) Examines Asian American/Pacific Islander struggles for social justice as spatial practices
Connects Bucket 6 (collective resistance) to Bucket 2 (spatial imaginary): organising transforms space
⚠️ Ozawa and Thind are a paired case study. An exam question will almost certainly ask you to explain both together and what they reveal about the construction of whiteness. The key point: the Court changed its standard between the two cases to ensure exclusion in both.
⚠️ "Virtual internment" (Bazian) is a concept that connects Week 7 (Asian exclusion/internment) to the post-9/11 present. Be prepared to explain the continuity and the difference between physical and virtual internment.
⚠️ The BPP survival programs are not a side note. They are central to Bucket 6's argument that resistance involves building alternative institutions, not just protesting existing ones. This connects directly to Du Bois's abolition democracy (Bucket 1).
⚠️ "Crime control or movement control?" is likely to appear as an essay prompt. Be able to discuss COINTELPRO, the New COINTELPRO, and the framing of political resistance as criminal activity.
⚠️ The distinction between segregation (imposed) and congregation (chosen) is a conceptual tool the course uses to reframe resistance. Do not conflate the two.
Q: What do the Ozawa and Thind cases, taken together, reveal about the legal construction of whiteness in the United States?
A: They reveal that "whiteness" was a politically manipulated category, not a stable scientific or common-sense designation. In Ozawa (1922), the Court defined whiteness as "Caucasian," excluding Ozawa despite his light skin. In Thind (1923), when Thind correctly claimed Caucasian ancestry, the Court abandoned the scientific standard and defined whiteness as what the "common man" would recognise. The standard shifted each time to ensure exclusion, demonstrating that legal whiteness was defined by who was to be kept out.
Q: What is Hatem Bazian's concept of "virtual internment" and how does it compare to the physical internment of Japanese Americans?
A: Virtual internment describes the post-9/11 surveillance, profiling, and social exclusion of Arab, Muslim, and South Asian Americans. Unlike WWII internment, there are no physical camps. Instead, confinement operates through watch lists, no-fly lists, mosque infiltration, and pervasive suspicion. The effect is psychological and social: a community is confined within a zone of suspicion without visible barriers. Both forms of internment rest on the same "looking like the enemy" logic.
Q: How did the Black Panther Party's survival programs function as political acts rather than charitable ones?
A: The survival programs demonstrated that the community could provide what the state would not: food, healthcare, education, and safety. They were framed as "survival pending revolution," meaning they sustained the community while building the organisational capacity for broader political transformation. By meeting material needs, they also challenged the state's legitimacy and created spaces of congregation where political consciousness could develop.
Q: How does the course connect COINTELPRO to post-9/11 counterterrorism?
A: Bazian's "The New Cointelpro" argues that post-9/11 counterterrorism operations reproduce the methods COINTELPRO used against the BPP, AIM, and other radical organisations: surveillance, infiltration, informants, entrapment, and the criminalisation of political activity. The target has shifted from Black and Indigenous radicals to Muslim and Arab Americans, but the logic, framing political dissent and racialised communities as security threats, remains the same.
Q: What is the difference between segregation and congregation as the course uses these terms?
A: Segregation is the state's forced separation and confinement of racialised groups in designated spaces. Congregation is the community's deliberate choice to gather, organise, and build institutions in shared space. The course argues that resistance movements transform segregated spaces into spaces of congregation, turning imposed isolation into collective power, as in the BPP's Oakland programmes.
citizenship, naturalization, racialised foreignness, perpetual foreigner, Orientalism, Islamophobia, Ozawa v. United States, United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, whiteness as legal category, Chinese Exclusion Act, Page Act, George Peffer, Chinese female immigration, Japanese American internment, Executive Order 9066, citizenship renunciation, Mae Ngai, virtual internment, Hatem Bazian, Mustafa Bayoumi, "How Does It Feel to Be a Problem," Leti Volpp, citizen and the terrorist, two-tier citizenship, Black Panther Party, BPP, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, survival programs, free breakfast program, self-determination, sovereignty, deniggeralization, COINTELPRO, New Cointelpro, crime control, movement control, Third Worldism, Third World Liberation Front, Los Siete de la Raza, Jason Ferreira, revolutionary intercommunalism, Besenia Rodriguez, Estella Habal, Asian American activism, Pacific Islander struggles, spaces of mobilisation, segregation vs congregation