Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a rash of violence against minority communities spread rapidly across the United States. The hate crimes targeted people who resembled the perpetrators of the attacks, and this targeted violence helped crystallize a new racialized category in modern America: "the apparently Muslim." This category incorporates people on the basis of both race and religion, and although it is not an officially recognized racial classification, Jaideep Singh argues that it has become "a defining reality for those who fall under its scope." The most adversely affected have been those belonging to Muslim, Sikh, Arab, and South Asian communities.