4 Postracial Britain
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Paul Warmington
Abstract
What does it mean to describe a society as postracial? The term ‘postracial’ is problematic because it has been used to denote differing worldviews. For some, postracial thinking requires a revolutionary shift, bringing radical incoherence to the narratives of modernity. For others, a postracial world implies, more modestly, a postracist world: a world in which racial inequalities have been removed. However, there is another putative postracialism that rests upon the claim that we have moved into a new phase in British society, wherein Britain’s approach to race equality stands as a model for the world. This facile state postracialism is shaped by an atavistic mistrust of antiracism and by a desire for ‘contradiction closure’: a conclusive end to recognition of problems of race and racism. Its ideology holds that racism has lost social salience and that consequently race is no longer a useful lens through which to understand social inequalities. This chapter examines recent UK policy and political rhetoric, marked by a drive to eliminate concepts of structural and institutional racism and by colourblind, ‘anything but racism’ accounts of why racial inequalities persist.
Abstract
What does it mean to describe a society as postracial? The term ‘postracial’ is problematic because it has been used to denote differing worldviews. For some, postracial thinking requires a revolutionary shift, bringing radical incoherence to the narratives of modernity. For others, a postracial world implies, more modestly, a postracist world: a world in which racial inequalities have been removed. However, there is another putative postracialism that rests upon the claim that we have moved into a new phase in British society, wherein Britain’s approach to race equality stands as a model for the world. This facile state postracialism is shaped by an atavistic mistrust of antiracism and by a desire for ‘contradiction closure’: a conclusive end to recognition of problems of race and racism. Its ideology holds that racism has lost social salience and that consequently race is no longer a useful lens through which to understand social inequalities. This chapter examines recent UK policy and political rhetoric, marked by a drive to eliminate concepts of structural and institutional racism and by colourblind, ‘anything but racism’ accounts of why racial inequalities persist.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- Series editor’s preface viii
- List of abbreviations x
- Acknowledgements xi
- Preface xii
- Introduction: ‘no place in our society’ 1
- Race: real and unreal 22
- Permanent racism: Derrick Bell’s racial realism 45
- Postracial Britain 69
- Against antiracism 95
- Whatever happened to the Black working class? 117
- Conclusion: Black futures 144
- References 151
- Index 173
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- Series editor’s preface viii
- List of abbreviations x
- Acknowledgements xi
- Preface xii
- Introduction: ‘no place in our society’ 1
- Race: real and unreal 22
- Permanent racism: Derrick Bell’s racial realism 45
- Postracial Britain 69
- Against antiracism 95
- Whatever happened to the Black working class? 117
- Conclusion: Black futures 144
- References 151
- Index 173
