Reviewing the Reviews: Discussions of Race by Film Reviewers

Color-blind racism has transformed how race scholars understand race relations in contemporary society. Previous researchers mainly utilized this theory to identify frames of color-blind racism in various social settings and interactions. What has received less attention, however, is how frames of color-blind racism are produced within material conditions in which social interactions and relations occur. In this study we use film reviews to exemplify how color-blind racism is produced in a specific materialist context—film reviews. Film reviews garner discussion among scholars for their impact on the box office revenues of films. Less attention is given to the content of these reviews and, particularly, how their writers address issues of race. This study provides a qualitative content analysis of film reviewer’s discussions of race in their reviews of twenty-first-century films featuring black protagonists to illuminate some ways in which mainstream and niche media outlets discuss race. Results suggest that the source of the reviews influences how race is considered and communicated among film reviewers. Mainstream reviewers differ widely from niche reviewers in both content and delivery in their discussions of race.     

Reframing Black Social Work Students' Experiences of Teaching and Learning

This article draws on critical race theory (CRT) to foreground the role of race and racism in the ways in which Black students experience social work teaching and learning. It reviews some of the available literature on Black social work students' experiences of teaching and learning. The article reframes understandings of the perceived failures of this group of students to adapt to the world of higher education. It is argued that race and racism are salient determining factors in the experiences of Black students within social work education. Emphasis is placed on understanding the specificity of this group of students taking into cognisance the social, cultural, economic, and political contexts within which they are located. The article uses CRT as critical lens to reflect on peer support groups as potential counter spaces that can disrupt the negative experiences of black social work students.     

How is ‘racism’ understood in literature about black and minority ethnic social work students in Britain? A conceptual review

ABSTRACT

This conceptual review interrogates a body of literature concerned with black and minority ethnic (BME) social work students in Britain since 2008. This period has coincided with an increasing focus on diversity in Higher Education, but also lower prominence being given to race in social work. In social work education, there has been increased attention to the needs and experiences of BME students. While most of this literature acknowledges racism, what constitutes racism and how it can be understood usually remain implicit. This review aimed to explore influential concepts in the literature and the ways these affected how racism is understood and identified. A search was carried out for articles in peer-reviewed academic journals between 2008 and 2018. In this article, we discuss four recurring concepts of racism in this literature: subtle racism, institutional racism, cultural difference and pedagogical solutions. The article analyses the assumptions underpinning these concepts, and the implications for how racism has been understood and investigated in this literature. The subsequent discussion calls for a more reflexive approach and identifies questions that future research could explore, which could lead to improved understandings of racism in social work education.     

Race and class revisited - conceptualising race and racisms1

This paper casts a critical eye on the ‘race’ and class debate in the British literature on race. It begins by arguing that ‘race’ derives its analytical status from its location within the wider category of ‘ethnos An exploratory framework is provided that defines racism’ and distinguishes it from race’ A number of central positions on the links between race and class are then reviewed and their theoretical and empirical difficulties discussed. The paper concludes by arguing that race and racism cannot be located as emanating essentially from specific class interest Racism is considered as a form i)f discourse and practice that can be harnessed to different political projects including those of class and nation building. Race on the other hand derives its ontological and analytical status from modes by which communal difference and identity are attributed and proclaimed.     

Walk the Walk but Don't Talk the Talk: The Strategic Use of Color‐Blind Ideology in an Interracial Social Movement Organization

In this study, I examine the strategies interracial organizations use in the twenty‐first century, where color‐blind ideology dominates. Much theoretical work on racism examines how it has evolved during different historical periods, but this work does not address how these changing forms of racism affect social movement organizations, particularly those on the left. While the literature on color‐blind ideology has examined how it is expressed by African Americans and European Americans separately, my work investigates how color‐blind ideology operates when European Americans and people of color are working together in the same organizational setting. Studies of social movements have examined how organizational culture affects strategies but have neglected how external racist culture and color‐blind ideology impacts organizational strategies. Findings from 3 years of ethnographic data collected on an interracial social movement organization and its corresponding coalition suggest that activists in interracial organizations use racism evasiveness strategically to maintain solidarity. I conceptualize racism evasiveness as the action resulting from color‐blind ideology within a larger system of racism. While activists perceive advantages to these strategies, there are also long‐term negative consequences. Without explicitly naming and addressing racism, progressive organizations may be limited in their ability to challenge systemic racism.     

Very Few People Say “No Whites”: Gay Men of Color and the Racial Politics of Desire

Rather than individual preferences, examination of sexual fields demonstrates that what is considered desirable by a majority of gay men follows a predictable pattern and is embedded with larger social meaning that defines which characteristics have erotic worth and which do not. While there are many diverse sexual fields, with many different potentially desirable characteristics, we argue that race is a consistent gauge of desirability that spans across diverse sexual fields within the gay community leading to widespread incidences of “sexual racism.” While the idea of sexual racism has been widely discussed in the popular press, and academic studies have also documented the racial hierarchy in the gay community, there have been fewer attempts to systematically explore how such racialized hierarchies of desire are understood by gay men of color. In this article, we attempt to address sexual racism as it is experienced by gay men of color and examine the consequences that sexual racism has on members of these groups. At the same time, we show that gay men of color of color are not simply “victims” of sexual racism but actively confront racial hierarchies of desire.     

Theorizing race and settler colonialism within U.S. sociology

Settler colonialism expands race and racism beyond ideological perspectives and reveals the links between historical and contemporary racialized social relations and practices–the racial structure–of American society. In this article, we define settler colonialism, highlight sociological scholarship that uses settler colonial theoretical frameworks, and explore ways in which this work enriches, intersects with, complicates, and contradicts key assumptions within the sociology of race.     

Diversity without difference: modelling ‘the real’ in the social aesthetic of a London multicultural school

This article analyses the social aesthetic of the visual displays of a multicultural London primary school. It shows that the social aesthetic of the school models the school as a site of the ‘real’ in Baudrillard's sense of a ‘real’ that is a simulacra of the real, one from which the violence that is produced within and is constitutive of capitalism is expelled. In this view ‘race’ is not a division of humanity caused by racism, it is simply a cultural sign marking diversity. Difference, in the sense of racialised inequalities or racism, can be expelled from the system without ‘race’ itself being expelled. By the same logic, nationalism, as an exclusionary ideology, is separated out from national identity, which becomes simply one of a range of cultural resources that children can draw on in assembling the self.     

Moving racisms,shifting targets: comparing racism experienced by mothers of mixed-parentage children with racism experienced by young people seeking sanctuary in Britain

As revealed by the 2011 Census, England is increasingly multi-ethnic. Yet, at the same time, racist discourses and practices continue to remain salient. In order to explore the contemporary manifestations of racism, this paper draws on research with two groups occupying different spaces within the sociology of race and ethnicity: young separated migrants seeking sanctuary in Britain and lone white mothers of mixed-parentage children. In this paper, we examine the everyday and structural racism experienced by each group in order to consider how seemingly different manifestations of race and racism are linked together and, in certain ways, dependent on each other. The paper argues that the public celebration of mixedness acts as a disavowal mechanism which can be used to conceal the endurance of colour-based racism as well as state racism operating legally through the immigration system.     

Redefining antiracism: Learning from activists to sharpen academic language

People have fought against racism for as long as it has existed and yet it persists in diverse and materially impactful ways. The primary challenge to eradicating racism is likely the power of white privilege. This paper argues that another important obstacle to progress has been the lack of a clear definition of antiracism that movement activists and scholars can collaboratively use to ensure that antiracist scholarship and efforts meet the full measure of the term's intention. While academia has struggled to converge on a definition, “lay race theorists” and movement activists—Black women in particular, have been participating in discourse online and through other venues where consensus appears to be developing around a definition. This article attempts to summarize activist discourse in defining antiracism as “the commitment to eradicate racism in all its forms” and individual antiracism as “the commitment to eradicate racism in all its forms, by (1) building an understanding of racism and (2) taking action to eliminate racism “within oneself, in other people, in institutions, and through actions outside of institutions,” noting that “antiracism is an ongoing practice and commitment that must be accountable to antiracist Black people, Indigenous people, and other People of Color and consider intersectional systems of oppression.” While research on the public conversation benefits from its easy access and limited additional burdens on movement activists, future research should test these definitions with movement activists to ensure that definitions and metrics are as relevant to the antiracist movement as possible.     

Races without Racism?: everyday race relations in Singapore

In Singapore, race has a prominent place in the city state’s national policies. Its political ideology of multiracialism proclaims racial equality and protection for minority groups from racial discrimination. However, despite official rhetoric and policies aimed at managing and integrating the different ethnic groups, some scholars have argued that institutional racism does exist in Singapore. While it is public knowledge, with few exceptions, racist provocations and experiences of racism are not publicly discussed. In recent years, the advent of social media has made it possible for Singaporeans oftentimes unwittingly to express racially derogatory remarks. This has highlighted that racism is much more deep rooted. Yet, it still remains the white elephant in the room. This paper examines the sociopolitical context that has contributed to everyday racial discrimination and calls for a public acknowledgement of racism so as to combat racist practices.     

What do we know the experiences and outcomes of anti-racist social work education? An empirical case study evidencing contested engagement and transformative learning

ABSTRACT

In social work education there have been very few attempts to empirically capture and measure how professional training programmes prepare students to work with ‘race’ equality and cultural diversity issues. This paper interrogates the experiences and outcomes of anti-racist social work education and evaluates the pedagogic relevance and practice utility of teaching social work students about ‘race’, racism and anti-racism. The data presented in this paper suggests that it is possible to discover the situated experiences of learning about anti-racism and measure how this teaching can affect and lead to knowledge, skills and attitudinal change. The triangulated mixed methods evidence presented in this paper combines nomothetic and idiographic approaches with quantitative data for a matched pair sample of 36 social work students and uses non-parametric statistical tests to measure at two time intervals (before and after teaching); knowledge, skills and attitudinal change. The paper explores how anti-racist social work education enables students to move from ‘magical consciousness’, where racism and racial oppression is invisible and thereby left unchallenged and maintained, to more critical and reflexive level of awareness where it is named, challenged and no longer shrouded in a culture of professional denial and silencing.     

Racialization and Muslims: Situating the Muslim Experience in Race Scholarship

This article reviews how racialization enables an understanding of Muslim and Muslim American experience as racial. Race scholarship in the United States has historically been a Black/White paradigm. As a result, the experiences of many racial and ethnic groups who have become a part of the American landscape due to the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 have largely been ignored in race scholarship. By reviewing racialization and its application to Arabs and Muslims, it is apparent that scholars must continuously explore newer theories and languages of race. Racialization not only provides a way to understand the fluidity of race and racism but it also contributes to the advancement of race scholarship by reflecting on the current contextual influences on race.     

From pathology to postmodernism: a debate on ‘race’ and mental health

This article suggests that ‘race’ and psychiatry are inextricably linked and as such ‘mental illness’ constitutes a precondition of black people's psyche. Postmodernist and poststructuralist analysis are used to question the way in which mental health problems have been socially constructed in western psychiatry. In order for health and social care workers to effectively respond to racism within psychiatry and community care provision it is necessary for them to understand the relationship that exists between and informs ‘race’ and psychiatry.     

Re-Thinking the 'Origins Debate': Race Formation and Political Formations in England's Chesapeake Colonies

The debate over the 'origins' of racism in colonial North America has been dominated by the view that racism was a consequence of the enslavement of African-origin labour, or alternatively that it was a prior – perhaps primordial – sentiment that shaped the process of enslavement. This paper offers an alternative reading of the evidence in suggesting that race formation can be understood in relation to the emergence of new forms of imagining political communities in early modern England, and Europe more generally. This argument can not only help refine understanding of race formation in early colonial America, but also sociological theories of race more generally, while helping avoid some of the theoretical problems entailed in attempting to trace the 'origins' of social phenomena.     

The (Un)Happy Objects of Affective Community

Affect permeates understandings of racial and cultural mixture as well as racial democracy in Brazil. Sentiments of interconnectedness, harmony and conviviality shape the ways in which Brazilians of diverse races/colours feel identity and belonging. These sentiments also drive hopeful attachments to possibilities for moving beyond race, influencing how people encounter and relate to racism and inequality. However, studies of race in Brazil tend to either take the affective for granted as positive unifying force or ignore its role in shaping the appeal of dominant racial discourses on identity, nation and belonging. Through an examination of the different ways people feel, experience and live orientations towards mixture and racial democracy as the dominant affective community, this paper analyzes the role the affective plays in constituting racial ideologies and shaping anti-racist action. I explore the ways histories of race, racism, privilege and disadvantage generate unequal attachments to and experiences of mixture and racial democracy as what Sara Ahmed calls ‘happy objects’, those objects towards which good feeling are directed, that provide a shared horizon of experience, and that shape an affective community with which all are assumed to be aligned. Not everyone attaches themselves to the same objects in the same way and for the same reasons – the affective community involves positive, hopeful attachments for some and an unhappy, alienating and unequally shared burden for others. These affective states demonstrate that histories of race and racism cannot be wished away through commonly asserted attachments to abstract ideals of shared belonging. At the same time, examining these affective states provides deeper understanding of the ways unequal attachments move people towards action or inaction in relation to race, racism and discrimination.     

Critique on the notion of model minority: an alternative racism to Asian American?

This research note attempts to probe how contemporary racism has evolved to replace physical characteristics with cultural traits by examining the notion of model minority in America. The analysis begins by positing that this notion manifests a problematic deployment of cultural differences. A short historical review justifies that model minority is generated and maintained by a stereotyped understanding of Asian tradition, especially Confucianism. Racial antagonism and class consciousness are then invoked by fostering essentialist ideas of cultural traditions. While America advocates its democratic system of inclusion, the logic of ‘model minority’ suggests an ‘internal exclusion’. The implications of model minority are thus that: (1) ‘race’ is replaced by ‘cultural difference’ – when cultural racism replaces biological racism, race is subsumed into a pure realm of cultural difference and race as a sociohistorical category becomes obscured; (2) the deployment of cultural differences creates an illusion that US society has already reached ‘color-blind’, and therefore neglects the social oppression and inequality along racial lines; (3) in the transforming process from a biologistic conception of race to a culturalist one, cultural differences are deployed to differentiate Asia(n) from American(n). Cultural differences are by all means essentialized, and race is furthermore reduced to essentialized cultural differences.     

Drug markets,violence, and the need to incorporate the role of race

While race has proven to be a critical variable in the sociological understanding of multiple social outcomes, scholars have yet to fully appreciate the nature by which it shapes drug‐related violence. Empirical responses to the 1980s urban proliferation of illicit drugs generally relied on systemic explanations of drug market violence and how participants, by virtue of social positioning, are unable to use the criminal justice system to address grievances. Contrarily, the contingent causation hypothesis suggests that drug markets engender violence in settings where socioeconomic conditions are already favorable for violence. In spite of the contributions of these two themes, we argue that both represent oversimplifications of the complex ways by which race structures drug‐related violence. To truly understand drug market violence, the dominant narrative of emerging research must contextualize the proliferation of illicit drugs within the socio‐historical context of race and institutional racism. Only if and when that happens will the field move towards realistic solutions to ameliorate this social problem.     

The Inadmissible “Other”: Discourses of Ableism and Colonialism in Canadian Immigration

This article reports on a critical discourse analysis study exploring how ableism, racism, and neocolonialism play out in Canadian immigration policies. Situated within critical social work theory as well as postcolonial and anticolonial theoretical frameworks, the study focused on Canadian immigration policies in relation to people with disabilities from the global South, an area that has not received sufficient attention in social work research and practice. Findings indicate that discourses concerning risk and protection are central in determining the admissibility and inadmissibility of immigration applicants and reinforce ableism, racism, and neocolonialism. The article concludes with implications for social work practice and research.