Post-race

Question 1

Who said ‘the post racial is the most racial’ and what else did he say?

Answer 1

Goldberg 2015 - there is more racism today than ever before. race is supposed to be a thing of the past since we have identified it as having no biological existence but somehow it is still something that is there and denying the presence of race doesn’t make it go away and even when we don’t talk about it.

Question 2

What does Winant 2006 say about students rejection of racism?

Answer 2

that many students say they ‘don’t notice race’ and that they ‘treat everyone as an individual’. Their rejection of racism is no doubt genuine but it tends to ratify the existing inequalities and injustices that continue to exist. So, people are arguably being complacent to racism.

Question 3

what does Prose 2008 say about Obama’s presidency and what has he been used as a symbol for?

Answer 3

that when Obama became president there was a moment of feeling like America was past race. It seemed as if some of the problems were solved and we were moving towards a post racial society.
Obama has been used as a symbol of post-race – there is more ability to be able to say race isn’t important anymore and doesn’t stop people succeeding or rising to positions of power.

Question 4

what does post-racial argue thinking we have seen the end of and what does it mark the influence of?

Answer 4

Post-racialism argues we have seen the end of more overt systems of racism since we have been able to discredit the biological conception of ‘race’
It also marks the influence of ‘intersectionality’ and the idea that ‘race’ is one of (and equal to or less important than) many inequalities so there is less emphasis on race because we need to think about other inequalities as well – so intersectionality can downplay race

Question 5

What are Paul’s 2014 two main strands of post-racialism ?

Answer 5

Conservative post-racialism which suggests ‘race’ has been largely transcended and racism largely eradicated - argues that we are largely inhabiting a ‘raceless’ society.

Progressive post-racialism that says we must abandon ‘race’ as a biological, political, and ethical idea in order to realise more universal claims to humanity.

Question 6

what is conservative post racialism reflected in?

Answer 6

claims that the idea that it is culture not ‘race’ now of importance and that those who use ‘race’ threaten racelessness

Question 7

Who says it is a contemporary European tendency to deny the continued significance of ‘race’ and racism and consider ‘race’ as alien to Europe ?

Answer 7

Goldberg 2006

Question 8

how is race made narrow within conservative post-racial discourse?

Answer 8

race is made narrow within conservative post-racial discourses with ‘race’ and ‘racism’ being conceptualised in particularly narrow ways based upon ideas of:

• ‘Race’ as biology
• ‘Race’ as chosen rather than ascribed identity - seen as something that people voluntarily elect into rather than as ascribed and embedded through social systems and institutions
• therefore race no longer exists, if it is an individual problem it’s much easier to denounce and eradicate it

Question 9

It is now ‘culture’ not ‘race’ that is of social and political significance. But ……. argues culture is the ‘new’ racism?

Answer 9

Lentin 2008

Question 10

what are the 4 ways that racism is restrictively conceived?

Answer 10

• Individualised - only in the minds and actions of individuals (or specific groups) rather than in the state and institutions which depoliticises racism. Being told for example oh no its not to do with race
• Biological - racism is only racism when referencing biological differences and asserting hierarchies on this basis.
• Extreme: racism is recognised only in its most extreme forms e.g. Holocaust, EDL. So we miss everyday mundane instances in which racism occurs
• Invocation: it is those that invoke ‘race’ that become the racists - including racial and ethnic minorities who play the ‘race card’ and bring racism back

Question 11

what does Butler 2004 say about the meaning of racism in todays society?

Answer 11

that racism has lost all meaning because racism is no longer actual racism. Racism is a boogey man which we don’t see in everyday situations but only in extreme ones and don’t see ourselves as racist while we spend our time complaining about Arab terrorists. We believe racism is restricted to the Nazi’s and not part of modern society

Question 12

what does Sule 2015 say about playing the race card?

Answer 12

there is an idea that since there are some black people who have succeeded that race is no longer an issue and so those who don’t succeed and blame racism are playing the race card

Question 13

give two examples of academics denouncing racism

Answer 13

Singh 2010 - ‘Ethnic minorities suffer high rates of mental illness—because of their background as migrants, not racism’
Sewell 2010 - Poor ‘African-Caribbean’ educational attainment due to, poor parenting, peer-group pressure and an inability to be responsible for their own behaviour

Question 14

In 2006, the Commission for Racial Equality was closed and…

Answer 14

…was subsumed into the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights so less emphasis was put on race

Question 15

What does Kapoor 2013 note about the 2010 Equality Act?

Answer 15

that it allowed local authorities to, ‘decide for themselves their own priority areas, which need not encompass all the dimensions of inequality brought under the act’ this means that people who are in charge who are usually white make the decisions about policy and can steer it away from anti-racist action

Question 16

Gilroy argues we need to move beyond race as a term since thinking about race is destructive however, Lentin 2008 argues that..

Answer 16

Gilroy fails to demonstrate how race as a term could be overcome in the face of the persistence of racism and argues that officially negating race does little to remove its consequences

Question 17

What is Paul’s 2014 post-racial paradox?

Answer 17

that in losing ‘race’, we lose a ‘badge’ for talking about, and organizing around racism. Claims to abandon ‘race’ may hinder the ability to address the enduring significance of racisms

Question 18

The rise in anti-Muslim racism is a critique of post-racial society. for example:

• Kapoor 2013 argues the nation creates racialised ‘others’ by the ‘War on Terror’ which leads to restrictive terrorism legislation
  and. ..

Answer 18

… Between 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 there was a 215% per cent increase of people stopped and searched under the Terrorism Act 2000

Question 19

name two pieces of evidence for the continuing significance of race which challenge post-racial claims

Answer 19

Jivraj and Khan 2013 - ‘All ethnic groups in England are more likely to live in deprived neighbourhoods than the White British Majority’
Finney 2014 - There has been an increase in ethnic inequalities in employment and housing

Question 20

What do Lentin and Titley argue in 2011?

Answer 20

that saying that race doesn’t matter before we have been able to reach a point where they don’t matter is problematic – there needs to be a dismantling of structural disadvantage and inequality

Question 21

What does Weinberg 2011 ask about the social construct of race?

Answer 21

if we know race is a social construct, at what point do we begin the process of deconstruction? Because race is a social reality, it is often treated as ‘real’ in scholarly work. While a fair amount has been written about how to dismantle racial discrimination, far less has been written about dismantling the concept of race itself.

Question 22

who argues for the conscious rejection of racial identity altogether. Not ‘black,’ ‘white,’ but ‘none’. Instead a transcendent identity or what Weinberg 2011 calls ‘aracial’– not categorising oneself by ‘race’

Answer 22

Rockquemore and Brunsma 2002

Question 23

what does Redclift 2014 argue are testament to post-racial Britain?

Answer 23

the growth of a mixed-race population, and the record (although still not representative) number of black and minority ethnic politicians in the Houses of Parliament and Lords, are testament to post-racial Britain

Question 24

According to Redclift 2014, what followed urban unrest in 2001, the attacks of 9/11 and the 2005 London bombings?

Answer 24

the country shifted away from celebrations of diversity towards an insistence on citizenship, community cohesion and Britishness.

Question 25

who argues that academia largely defines post- racialism as little more than a deceptive political ruse?

Answer 25

Winant 2004

Question 26

What does Paul 2014 argue post-racialism may be capable of? and what critical question does it give rise to?

Answer 26

Ultimately, post-racialism may be capable of assisting in the re-conceptualization of racism offering more accurate forms of social description and explanation that could better identify racism and equip anti-racism to better contest it.
and post-racialism raises a critical question: how can society ‘get away from race’ without using it?

Question 27

According to Nayak 2006, why does post-racialism make sense?

Answer 27

post racialism may make sense since the premise that there are distinct races with biologically inherent characteristics or culturally immutable ethnicities has proved to be little more than a fiction. So there is no such thing as race.

Question 28

What does Lentin 2014 say about the idea of reverse racism?

Answer 28

Obama and other minorities success is seen not only as evidence that we live in a post race society but make way for the argument that due to the unjustified support given to minorities in the wake of civil rights in the USA, those who are really discriminated today are members of the displaced white majority.

Question 29

who asks how can we be post-race when David Cameron claims that multiculturalism has failed because it has led to the toleration of ‘these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values’, he legitimates the heightened suspicion, disciplining and exclusion of racialized minorities, in particular Muslims, who are deemed to pose an internal threat to the security and moral integrity of western nations.

Answer 29

Lentin 2014

Question 30

Barker argues that the ‘new racism’ of the European far right is the justified intolerance of immigrants on the basis of cultural incompatibility rather than biological, racial hierarchy and that there is new cultural racism.
Balibar 1991 argues however, that…

Answer 30

in reality, racism has always adapted to the circumstances, adopting biological as well as culturalist arguments to make its case: that there are immutable differences between groups of human beings

Question 31

what do Law, Simms and Sirriyeh 2013 argue?

Answer 31

that there is declining action and commitment to anti-racism in the ideal of a post racial society even though racist crime continues to be a problem
and that in the UK 89 people have lost their lives in attacks with a racial element since the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993, and racist attacks regularly take place so this is hardly a post-racist context.

Question 32

According to Gilroy 1987 what is there a desire to claim? and what according to Kapoor 2013 is this in stark contrast to?

Answer 32

that race is now reduced to a residue which has rendered it invisible and the product of ill social relations and fascist political movements
This is in stark contrast to the state discourse which emphasizes racial inequality is no longer, the ‘War on Terror’ works to continuously remove dehumanize and target muslims

Question 33

what did Rutter and Latorre 2009 find about local authorities housing ethnic minorities and what does this suggest?

Answer 33

that they sometimes deliberately housed families from ethnic minority communities in groups in particular areas which suggests persisting racist structures

Question 34

who argues that we are being asked to give up on race before and without addressing the roots and the histories of race?

Answer 34

Goldberg 2009

Question 35

What does Harries 2014 say about the difficulities in talking about race?

Answer 35

It is not easy to name racism when race is almost entirely denied in public discourses and discourses that silence race have become embedded in the UK. Describing experiences of racism is difficult for people when they situate themselves in a context of post-racialism.
The silencing of race makes it difficult for people subjected to racism to name it, but also suggests that they are under pressure to actively deny these processes in order to be conceived as part of the behavioural ‘norm’. Naming racism conflicts with the imagined notion of a ‘post-race’ liberal nation of which respondents saw themselves a part. And furthermore, to name racism, it is suggested, could itself be interpreted as racism. This is a troubling paradox and sets challenges when seeking to reveal and resist racism.

Question 36

who argues that there has been recognition of the need to retain race because it is a key means through which to organise grievances ?

Answer 36

Gilroy 2002

Question 37

who argues that marginalised people attempt to escape marginalised positioning’s by taking care not to resemble the ‘real’ thing. In doing so, people attempt to pass instead as ‘neutral’. E.g. explaining racism away as not really racist but just confused

Answer 37

Skeggs 1997

Question 38

what does Goldberg 2006 say about the problems of Europes idea about gracelessness?

Answer 38

Europe supposedly represents racelessness which has considerable appeal however not for those in societies long bruised racism. A problem is this includes a shift in the burden of legal proof in the face of charges of institutional racism from those making the charges to those being charged. The idea of post-race leads to the shift to personalize and individualize racism, to reduce racist violence to a few cruel individuals and to deny institutional fault of segregation or failures in employment or education
Race is seen as an embarrassment with no social place and something that we like to think of as in the past. ‘We will not tolerate racism’ invariably quite quickly becomes ‘We cannot speak of race’. And social silence sets in until an outburst like the case of Stephen Lawrence

Question 39

According to Lentin 2008, silencing race allows..

Answer 39

European states to claim to be non-racist when there is a still a view of people who are in but not of Europe

Question 40

who argues that examples of direct racism and the response of non-tolerance shows that contemporary western societies are non-tolerant of racism and claim to be anti-racist despite racism taking on new forms. For example, there has been a rise in racism in policy which goes hand in hand with the criminalisation of asylum seekers and the continuing war on terror
Race and racism have been assigned to the realm of the pre-modern and racism has become a hangover only in those who have not, due to lack of education and maturity, been able to see the error of their ways. So race is removed from structure

Answer 40

Lentin 2008

Question 41

what does Hesse 2007 argue about policy makers and stories of colonial rule?

Answer 41

Policy makers have promoted a cleansed history of colonial rule as largely beneficial to natives and metropolitans for example: in France school courses have to recognise the positive role of the French presence overseas
As a consequence, the roots of racism have always been located somewhere else. They are conceived of as alien to the humanism and racism is never portrayed as by Europe and there is always an attempt divert the blame/cause of racism elsewhere

Question 42

Why does Goldberg 2006 argue race has been buried alive?

Answer 42

race is thought to have no social place and is silenced. This does not mean, however, that it ceases to be implicit.

Question 43

who argues that by taking race away from the racialized, the ‘badge’ of race is also denied them ?

Answer 43

Du Bois 1940

Question 44

what does Gilroy say about the badge of race?

Answer 44

The badge of race is not worn out of choice. Even where race is proudly re-appropriated, it is as a result of racism that the need to organize around a far from authentic racial identity is felt. In the contemporary context, the racialization of religious affiliation, most notably that of Muslims, is a clear example of how an oppositional shared identity can congeal and harden in reaction to the presumed immutable otherness of a shared faith.