Permanent Racism

Racism has no place in British society. That is what we tell ourselves, to show that we deplore crude bigotry and prejudice. However, racism has a very real place in our world. It has structured empires, facilitated genocide, slavery and the mass movement of populations. Racism continues to fuel nationalism and authoritarianism. At the ordinary level it informs experiences of education, employment, criminal justice, health and migration. This book engages with Critical Race Theory from a British standpoint, focusing on a key concept: the permanence of racism, the idea that racism persists in society because of its critically important stabilising role. This challenging idea runs counter to the postracial turn that pervades British politics, wherein symbols of racial progress are prized above actual progress and the concept of institutional racism is delegitimised. The three dominant features of this facile state-led postracialism are: the claim that racism has lost its social salience; strident antagonism to antiracism; the discursive elimination of communities of colour from the politically valued authentic working class. This book comprises a cultural study of discourses of race and class in ‘postracial’ Britain. It challenges the current demonisation of critical race studies, arguing for the need to understand race as a fully social relationship, the need to decolonise postracialism – and to decolonise antiracism itself.