6 Whatever happened to the Black working class?
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Paul Warmington
Abstract
Up until the 1980s there was still a fraction in Britain clinging to the fancy that communities of colour could literally be erased from British society. Today those dreams have been replaced by discursive erasure, comprising facile postracialism, colourblind policy approaches and virulent antagonism to antiracist voices. Another powerful dimension is the disqualification of the Black and Brown working class. Since the 2000s there has been relentless policy and media focus on Britain’s (and specifically England’s) ‘White working class’. What has this racialised reimagining of working-class identity meant for those in Black and Brown working-class communities who, in policy and public debate, have been positioned outside Britain’s class matrix. This chapter examines the discursive repositioning of Black and Brown working-class communities: not only as outside of working-class identity, but often as the cause of White working-class loss, as a legitimate grievance. It explores the persistence of neo-Powellism in debates on race, class and migration in Britain; post-industrial rearticulations of race and class; the transatlantic emergence of the discourse of the ‘left behind’; and the ‘social death’ implicit in disqualification from class identity.
Abstract
Up until the 1980s there was still a fraction in Britain clinging to the fancy that communities of colour could literally be erased from British society. Today those dreams have been replaced by discursive erasure, comprising facile postracialism, colourblind policy approaches and virulent antagonism to antiracist voices. Another powerful dimension is the disqualification of the Black and Brown working class. Since the 2000s there has been relentless policy and media focus on Britain’s (and specifically England’s) ‘White working class’. What has this racialised reimagining of working-class identity meant for those in Black and Brown working-class communities who, in policy and public debate, have been positioned outside Britain’s class matrix. This chapter examines the discursive repositioning of Black and Brown working-class communities: not only as outside of working-class identity, but often as the cause of White working-class loss, as a legitimate grievance. It explores the persistence of neo-Powellism in debates on race, class and migration in Britain; post-industrial rearticulations of race and class; the transatlantic emergence of the discourse of the ‘left behind’; and the ‘social death’ implicit in disqualification from class identity.
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
