Challenging a culture of racial equivalence

We live at a time when our understandings and conceptualizations of ‘racism’ are often highly imprecise, broad, and used to describe a wide range of racialized phenomena. In this article, I raise some important questions about how the term racism is used and understood in contemporary British society by drawing on some recent cases of alleged racism in football and politics, many of which have been played out via new media technologies. A broader understanding of racism, through the use of the term ‘racialization’, has been helpful in articulating a more nuanced and complex understanding of racial incidents, especially of people's (often ambivalent) beliefs and behaviours. However, the growing emphasis upon ‘racialization’ has led to a conceptualization of racism which increasingly involves multiple perpetrators, victims, and practices without enough consideration of how and why particular interactions and practices constitute racism as such. The trend toward a growing culture of racial equivalence is worrying, as it denudes the idea of racism of its historical basis, severity and power. These frequent and commonplace assertions of racism in the public sphere paradoxically end up trivializing and homogenizing quite different forms of racialized interactions. I conclude that we need to retain the term ‘racism’, but we need to differentiate more clearly between ‘racism’ (as an historical and structured system of domination) from the broader notion of ‘racialization’.     

Hiding in plain sight: Dehumanization as a foundation of white racial prejudice

In the media, during sporting events, in online forums, and in interpersonal interactions, whites often portray Black people as animals, especially as apes or monkeys. In this essay we consider what contemporary research on prejudice in American politics has to say about these dehumanizing portrayals of Black people. We argue that contemporary political science work has not done enough to understand both the historical roots and the continuing practices of whites' dehumanization of Black people, to the detriment of an accurate understanding of racial attitudes in the United States. To rectify this omission, we draw on the work of historians to map out a brief overview of race-making and the dehumanizing attitudes that shaped this process. Then, we review political science literature on contemporary white attitudes toward Black people, emphasizing connections between prevailing conceptions of these attitudes and long-standing processes of dehumanization. We conclude by charting directions for future scholarship; we seek to unsettle the mainstream of a subfield dominated by mild conceptions of racial attitudes.     

Racemaking in New Orleans: racial boundary construction among ideologically diverse college students

We explore how an ideologically diverse group of white students at Tulane University respond to evidence of racial inequality in post-Katrina New Orleans. In line with prior research, we find commonalities in racialized attitudes and behaviours between students whose racial ideologies otherwise differ. Drawing from anthropological theories of boundary construction and sociological work on colour-blind racism, we argue that the Otherization of non-whites is part of the everyday worldviews and social practices of white Americans. We draw on fieldwork in New Orleans to demonstrate that racist stereotypes and beliefs in racial difference continue to be transmitted within white social spaces. We find that even the most progressive Tulane students are engaged in the construction and reinforcement of symbolic and spatial boundaries between themselves and African Americans. This achieves the purpose for which racial stereotypes were originally constructed – namely, the persistence of racial inequality.     

The response of youth to racial discrimination: implications for resilience theory

This paper presents a qualitative participatory study of Canadian young people who identified themselves as visible minorities and who have experienced discrimination based on their skin colour or ethnicity. Eighteen participants aged 15–24 (12 girls and 6 boys), representing four ethnic minority groups, participated in focus groups and in-depth interviews and shared their responses to racial discrimination against them. Analysis of the data from the four discussion groups reveals that racism occurs in everyday situations and places, a lot of times manifesting itself as subtle forms of discrimination. Our findings also suggest that most of the participants tend to employ non-confrontational approaches when dealing with racial violence against them, and provide us with the rationale behind their intentions. Further, youth are not uniformly impacted by racialized events, and therefore the coping strategies they use vary based on individual and contextual factors. Three common strategies for healing can be derived from the participants’ narratives: expressive-emotional, spiritual-forgiving and communicative-relational. We discuss our findings in the light of theoretical frameworks of resilience and coping approaches and argue that young people’s subjective appraisals of racialized events as well as contextual factors need to be addressed in any discussion on coping and resilience within minority youth populations.     

On deaf ears: anti-black police terror,multiracial protest and white loyalty to the state

In this essay, we explore the racialised dimensions of policing practices in Brazil. To do so, we look not at the police, their administrative organisation, and practices, but rather we examine the modes of sociality reflected in and produced by police violence. Drawing from a statistics-based analysis of the social and political outcomes produced by the state in its preparation of mega-sports events – evictions, incarceration, and police violence, for example – we identify a nexus between, on the one hand, racialised violence against black bodies and, on the other hand, white loyalty to the state, despite, or precisely because of, a specific type of violence perpetrated by the state on white bodies. Our primary contention is that we cannot understand white victimisation by the police – and the outrage it produces – without taking into consideration two foundational, dialectical aspects of the regime of rights: complicity and disavowal. White vulnerability to this specific form of state violence – a form of violence that is contingent and produces collective horror – reflects not only the disavowal of black suffering, but also the strengthening of the white public sphere.     

From colonization to Zaitokukai: the legacy of racial oppression in the lives of Koreans in Japan

ABSTRACT

Some scholars have argued that anti-Korean oppression is disappearing from Japanese society, and that race is irrelevant to the current condition of Zainichi Koreans, Japan’s disenfranchised postcolonial minority. In contrast to these views, this article builds on racial formation theory to retrace the historical development of racism in Japan, and to reveal its continuing impact on the lives of Zainichi Koreans. It remarks that Zainichi Koreans have reacted to oppression in various ways, forging new identities and resisting using the means available to them. But it also contends that the persistence of discriminations and inequalities, as well as the recent rise of ultranationalist groups like Zaitokukai, are proofs of the ongoing marginalization and persecution of Koreans in Japan.     

Antiracism apps: framing understandings and approaches to antiracism education and intervention

Mobile apps for antiracism have become valuable pedagogical and activist tools for their real-time and mapping capabilities, their portability and intimate bodily presence, which enables a reaction exactly when an act of racism occurs. In this article, five mobile apps aimed at producing antiracism education or intervention outcomes from the United Kingdom, Australia and France are the focus of an interrogation of the ways in which racism and antiracism are framed and the strengths and weaknesses of these initiatives for countering dominant forms of everyday racism. We identify a number of different approaches to racism and antiracism in our inquiry, which lead to particular sets of aims, features and uses: the app as a tool for capturing, reporting and responding to racist acts; as a way of reinforcing a wider sense of community identity and solidarity; to demonstrate racism, especially Islamophobia, and make its forms visible, and as a means for challenging racism through raising awareness and encouraging bystanders to oppose it. We argue that while these apps are well disposed to exposing and manifesting isolated incidents of racism in everyday life, we question their potential for transformative societal outcomes beyond the level of unilateral action in the context of events experienced as unique incidents.     

From Ethnic segregation to impact integration: state schooling and identity construction for rural Tibetans

This paper examines the context of ethnic identity formation in schools for rural Tibetan children. It reviews rural primary education within Tibet and the secondary education for Tibetans in boarding schools across China. Data are presented on policies, student recruitment, curriculum, teachers and the campus environment, as they impact on students' identity formation. Although there is little that is multicultural about the learning process in these schools, these schools do not strictly deny Tibetan culture to Tibetan children. The school architecture, sculptures, photographs, wall paintings and so forth provide representations of Tibetan culture, albeit selectively and interpreted by the state in terms of the ideological themes of national unity, patriotism, revolutionary traditions, civilised behaviour and love of Tibet. The conclusion points to a make‐or‐break opportunity for state education to support a more even‐handed cultural policy, rather than the dichotomy of segregation and impact integration.     

Perception of Western governments’ hostility to Islam among European Muslims before and after ISIS: the important roles of residential segregation and education

Perception of Western governments’ hostility to Islam is one of the indicating features of Islamic fundamentalism and, in some cases, is serving as a pull to join extremist groups. In this paper, using data from two waves of a cross‐national survey, we investigate what affects European Muslims’ opinions about Western governments. We find that residential segregation is associated with perceived hostility of Western governments to Islam. Further, we find that Muslims living in segregated neighbourhoods and enclaves have a higher probability of believing that Western governments are hostile to Islam. National origins of Muslim immigrants have a significant impact, with people from African countries measuring less perceived hostility than others. We also find that education is associated with perceived hostility of Western governments to Islam in a non‐linear way. People with the highest and lowest levels of education tend to be less likely to believe that Western governments are hostile to Islam, relative to people with mid‐level education. This non‐linear effect is best explained by education’s differential effects on perceptions of key world events. During the time between 2011 – before ISIS’s announcement of its Caliphate in Iraq and Syria – and 2013, subsequent to that announcement, we see a sharp decrease in perception of Western governments’ hostility to Islam, particularly among more educated European Muslims. We make the case that this decrease can be attributed, in some ways, to the emergence of ISIS. We discuss our findings in terms of theoretical and policy implications.     

Spatial approaches to measure subnational inequality: Implications for Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations expressed an interest in reducing subnational (i.e., province and state level) inequality. We propose using a spatial decomposition of the Gini coefficient (SDGC) to track changes in subnational inequality. Typically, agencies do not track summary measures of subnational clustering of development indicators. Tracking changes in the SDGC can help measure and reduce regional inequality. To illustrate the use of the SDGC, we first present data for 93 nations to obtain cross‐sectional variation. Next, to illustrate how the SDGC trends over time, changes in the Human Development Index in Mongolia are compared to Russia and China. The SDGC can show improvement, decline and persistent clustering of subnational level inequality. The SDGC is a useful measure for the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.