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'Race', Racism, Anti-Racism: challenging contemporary classifications Alana Lentin, European University Institute Social Identities 6(1), March 2000: 91-106 Abstract This paper argues for the revisiting of classificatory concepts currently in use in the study of

'race', racism and anti-racism. It examines the proposition that racist movements no longer

promote discrimination on the grounds of a belief in biological differences but espouse a

'differentialist' racism based on a conviction in the fixity of culture, paradoxically 'borrowed'

from culturally relativist anti-racist arguments. A critique of the differentialist thesis

developed by Pierre-André Taguieff is presented based upon the writings of Etienne Balibar

and Paul Gilroy. The former, by grounding modern racism in the ideological universalism of

the European Enlightenment project, argues that the apportioning of blame to anti-racism for

abetting the advent of culturalist racism is unhelpfully conceived from a perspective which

seeks to deny the legitimacy of Black and ethnic minority led alliances as a basis for anti-

racist struggles. The novel connection is made between these arguments and those of Paul

Gilroy (1998) who proposes the redundancy of the term 'race', even from pragmatist

perspectives, in the revitalisation of anti-racism as a viable opposition to contemporary racist

discourses. The argument is made that in order to dissect normative understandings of 'race' it

is necessary to follow the historical trajectory taken by racism in becoming an inextricable

component of the modern project. Anti-racism, thus, must be seen as a multi-layered conflict

and, therefore, separate from its anti-fascist, anti-colonialist, leftist and institutionalised

forms. Evidence from recent interviews with anti-racist activists points to their rejection of

both 'culturalist' and 'biological' approaches to racism and towards broad alliances of

community-led activists against overt but also covert, institutionalised racist discrimination.

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Introduction The last decade in sociology and political science has witnessed a rising

predominance of themes in ethnicity and identity as explanations both for the unprecedented

explosion of ethnic conflict in Europe post-1989 and for what Billig (1995) terms 'banal

nationalism', a paradoxical increase in the importance of a communal belonging based on

cultural heredity in an age seemingly defined by cross-national communication and

knowledge of the Other. A concomitant debate in political philosophy has evolved,

particularly in North America, between liberals and communitarians, an issue largely forced

by the challenges and oppositions embedded in the 'multiculturality' (Anthias, 1997) of

contemporary western societies.

In contrast, the discussion of 'race' has not figured as prominently in this complex of

'hot' sociological, political and philosophical currents. Whilst 'racism' is still rightly regarded

as an important source of institutionally and individually based discrimination in

contemporary western societies, this appears to be due to the very centrality of ethnicity and

the accompanying need to explain the persistence of 'ethnic tensions' in societies that, at least

theoretically, have moved towards a 'politics of recognition' (Taylor, 1994). In a normative

sense then, while 'race' can no longer be used as a categorisation of human groups, it is

understood that racism afflicts members of ethnic minority communities whose difference we

no longer describe in racial or biological terms. It may be argued that a problematisation of

such classificatory categories leads, unhelpfully, to a discussion based merely on semantics.

However, the introduction of the concept of 'racialisation' (Balibar, 1991) to refer to the

discrimination of groups and individuals on the basis of perceived racial attributes is useful in

pinpointing racism's targets. Nevertheless, such a terminological discussion evades the very

serious issue that the demise in importance of discussions of 'race' and racism - in any sense

other than the heuristic - poses to the building of sociological theory grounded in a

commitment to anti-racism at a time when concomitant racist discourses appear to have

advanced significantly and in a sophisticated manner.

Regardless of academia's desire to move beyond 'race' and racism, the last decade has

witnessed both an increase in the observable forms of racism and a reanalysis of the prevalent

discourses characterising its self-understanding (Taguieff, 1990). In contrast, anti-racism as a

viable movement is perceived to be subsumed by crisis (Gilroy, 1992), lacking unity,

workable strategy and public support. Both are shaped by the realities of societies

characterised by a general fragmentation of the symbolic cultural modes guiding the life

structures of their populations, an increase in an immigration no longer categorised as guest

labour and a dismantling of welfare systems. The increasing 'multiculturality' of western

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societies is accompanied by a parallel inability to effectively deal with its inevitable

consequences - the racist discrimination of ethnically or 'racially' different minorities, who

highlight the alterity between the dominant and subordinate groups inherent in today's nation

state.

Two seemingly conflicting processes are at work in this context. On the one hand,

contemporary western societies are perceived as being multicultural, a state actively promoted

by the media and advertising industries, through popular music and other cultural forms:

diverse, dynamic and positive. On the other hand, multiculturalism has been a liberal public

policy, emerging from North America, replacing assimilative strategies and emphasising the

preservation of cultural difference. Multiculturalism in this latter form has been criticised1 for

establishing a clear separation between the domain of the public and that of the private by

concentrating on culture as the main determinant of difference and neglecting the structural

nature of racism and ethnocentrism. Seen in this light, the multicultural environment

perceived, by some, as positively diverse or, by others, as a 'solution' to the social problems

brought about by immigration leads to the marginalisation and de-politicisation of the

disproportionate power relations in dominant-subordinate group interactions.

A discussion of the contemporary relevance of racism and anti-racism needs to

address the context in which they are played out. Racism and discrimination should be

brought back to the domain of the political but this cannot be done without attention to

contextual transformations - particularly in the urban environment where racism and anti-

racism are most often played out. Racism, the possibilities for anti-racism and the overall

atmosphere of multiculturalism must each be reanalysed in a context in which visible cultural

differences, in their discourses if not in every day reality, become more important than ever

before in the search for identities.

In this paper I will argue that to understand the crisis faced by anti-racism as a

movement in Europe at the turn of the millennium three steps should be taken:

1. Closer attention should be paid to contemporary discourses that propose the advent of a

'new', 'culturalist' or 'second degree' racism in light of the extent to which these arguments

posit an antagonistic relationship between post-war racism and an anti-racism described

as facilitating the former's increasing acceptability.

1 c.f. Jakubowicz (1984), Anthias (1997), Parekh (1993).

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2. In response to this approach that seeks to pin the blame for new racist discourses on the

failures of the anti-racism movement, the centrality of racism to the evolution of the

European nation state and to the development of universalist ideologies about 'general

ideas of man' should be examined.

3. Lastly, I will suggest that the use of 'race' as a critical concept can no longer assist in

fighting racism, antisemitism and xenophobia.

In exploring these three points I will emphasise the work of three key authors: Pierre-

André Taguieff, Etienne Balibar and Paul Gilroy. I will pay most attention to Balibar’s

response to Taguieff’s proposal of a ‘neo’ or ‘second degree’ racism and propose the

existence of a continuum between the work of Balibar and that of Gilroy. My objective is to

show how these important contributions can be drawn upon in an attempt to theorise anti-

racist potential.

The development of these arguments in greater detail will lead me to the proposal that

a reformulation of anti-racism as a viable form of collective action may take the form of the

inter-ethnic alliances beginning to emerge in Europe that seek to go beyond identity politics,.

In order to highlight the significance of these new developments, I will draw on some

examples from my own research in progress of European anti-racist movements. Recent

interviews with anti-racist activists in the United Kingdom2 revealed that alliances across

different minority ethnic and racialised groups as well as cross-national contacts are

increasingly important for strengthening the anti-racist message. This is of particular

importance at a time of enhanced activity around the introduction of racist asylum and

immigration legislation across the European Union.

Contemporary racisms and the centrality of culture

Contemporary western societies have become increasingly multi-ethnic, leading to

the popular perception based on observations of large cosmopolitan cities (such as London,

Paris or Amsterdam) that cultural diversity is a fully accepted phenomenon. For this reason

the persistence of racism and the success in various countries of far-right wing parties with a

strong anti-immigrant manifesto is of significant concern. It is against this setting that writers

2 These interviews were carried out as part of my research on European anti-racist movements. Interviews in the UK and Ireland have been carried out in the first stage of a project also looking at movements in several other western European countries. The project will eventually group together a number of activists from different organisations and countries in an interactive action-based research in part using the Internet in addition to face-to-face meetings.

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such as the French sociologist Pierre-André Taguieff have introduced the notion of a 'neo-

racism', based, not on biological, but upon cultural differentiation between peoples3.

Pierre-André Taguieff's theorisation of a new racism, founded upon the view of

cultures as fixed, is strongly linked to his attempt to point out the role of anti-racism in

facilitating this phenomenon. Taguieff develops the notion of a differentialist racism based on

the fixity of culture which renders both 'racism' and 'anti-racism' incomplete as terms seeking

to explain the intricacy of this oppositionary complex (Taguieff, 1991). His argument is based

on twentieth century developments in anthropology which weakened the biological

theorisation of superior and inferior 'races' and made 'official' the notion that the existence of

human 'races' has no scientific bearing. What evolved, however, due to the work of

anthropologists such as Claude Lévi-Strauss (1961) and the growing acceptability of culture

rather than 'race' as a primary marker of difference, was the notion of cultural relativism upon

which, Taguieff claims, anti-racism based itself.

The emerging anti-racist tradition constructed itself around the beliefs that cultural

phenomena are of an autonomous nature, that cultural determinism thus dominates both

mentality and lifestyle, and that all cultures should be valued equally. With this, Taguieff

appears to blame anti-racists for declaring the nullity of racial differentiation as a viable

concept and replacing it with the semantically interchangeable term 'culture', the positive

nature of which could be easily subscribed to but whose deterministic properties had not been

properly thought out. In more direct terms, the notion of cultural differentiation as equally

valorised presents no problem to left-leaning, western thinkers in so far as it is contained in

anthropological field research, the idea becomes problematic when contextualised in the form

of European-bound immigration. This approach is echoed by the current debate on the limits

of communitarianism and is visible in Habermas' writings on the effect that a "tremendous

influx of immigration" (Habermas, 1995: 255) may have on the stability of western European

societies. Indeed, the advent of social-democrat governments in all four of Europe's largest

states does not seem to have altered hard-line, racially-biased approaches to immigration

(Bloch, 1999).

Taguieff shows anti-racist thinking to have developed, regardless of the influence of

culturalist moves in anthropology, along the lines of an opposition to a racism still perceived

literally to be racist in the biological sense. This view of the racist opposition was based on

3 Note that while the neo-racist thesis has been associated with the French literature on the subject and is strongly related to the rise of the Front National in that country, British writers have also written about the emergence of a new racism (c.f. Barker, 1981; Gordon, 1989).

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anti-racism's inability to sever the linkages in the 'hostility to difference-

annihilation/genocide' continuum, founded upon the experience of the Nazi Shoah. However,

lack of evidence for connecting contemporary racism against immigrants to the horrors of

recent history, led to the formulation of economic arguments for the explanation of intolerant

attitudes which, however unwillingly, justified working class phobias against foreigners. This

double victimisation was the outcome of the deliberate attempt by the capitalist class to serve

its own interests, diffusing racial prejudice to mask class hegemony.

Taguieff seeks to show that whilst anti-racism was being subsumed by

economic/colonialist arguments, racism itself was learning from the initial trigger for these

very ideas - the notion of cultural rather than biological difference. To be clear, it is proposed

that anti-racist thought was based on three pinnacles: the invalidity of 'race', the centrality of

cultural difference and the equal status of all cultures. These principles are at the core of

arguments for cultural relativism. At the same time, the proliferation of racist attitudes

amongst the working classes was explained in terms of traditional class conflict. This need to

excuse the racism of the white working class still sticks in the side of the progressive anti-

racist movement today (interview with CARF, 1999). On the other hand, racism as diffused

by the bourgeoisie, was held to be based on a belief in the hierarchisation of biological races

that, in the extreme, would lead to human genocide. Anti-racism as a movement sought, in

reaction, to combat racism by insisting upon the equal valorisation of all cultures and a

respect for difference. This, for Taguieff, was anti-racism's gravest error.

A problematisation of Taguieff's contribution has been proposed by Etienne Balibar.

In his summary of Taguieff's work, Balibar concludes:

"From the logical point of view, differentialist racism is a meta-racism, or what we

may call a 'second-position' racism, which presents itself as having drawn the lessons

from the conflict between racism and anti-racism, as a politically operational theory

of the causes of social aggression. If you want to avoid racism, you have to avoid

that 'abstract' anti-racism which fails to grasp the psychological and sociological laws

of human population movements; you have to respect the 'tolerance thresholds',

maintain 'cultural distances' or, in other words, in accordance with the postulate that

individuals are the exclusive heirs and bearers of a single culture, segregate

collectivities (the best barrier in this regard still being national frontiers)"

(Balibar, 1991: 23)

This reading of Taguieff, highlights the problematic nature of his insistence on a

culturalist racism which replaces the 'traditional' view of human populations differentiated on

the basis of biological 'race'. Taguieff sees this new racism as purposefully veiling its purer

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form, biological racism. In retaliation, he argues, anti-racism should adjust its orientation in

recognition of the toned down cultural discourse of the new Right. His emphasis on the need

to tackle new-Rightist strategy masks anti-racism's growing concern with racism as a diffused

phenomenon, more pervasive and, arguably more dangerous, in its institutionalised forms.

Indeed, Taguieff's position reveals his strong situation in the context of the French debate on

racism4. According to Phil Cohen, in the British context "the new racism thesis provided an

important intellectual resource for the anti-racist movement, enabling it to shift its attention

beyond the violent, aversive forms of popular racism towards the more subtle and invisible

aspects of cultural stereotyping and discrimination, especially as these operated within the

institutions of civil governance" (Cohen, 1999: 4).

In essence, the more correct argument appears to be that there is no significant

difference between theories that seek to justify the discrimination of the Other, whether they

be biological or cultural. It is not simply that if anti-racism were to realise that racism no

longer believes in biologically determined differentiation and has now itself taken up the

cultural relativists' call for the unicity of culture that it could become a viable movement.

What in fact appears to be at the root of placing the blame at anti-racism's door is rather an

exasperation at the failure of assimilative strategies. Thus, Taguieff appears to be following a

current in French anti-racism that calls for the right of 'immigrants' (second and third

generations included) to integrate into French society. Harlem Désir, leader of SOS Racisme

in the 1980s stated: "For us integration is primarily the rejection of exclusion, the rejection of

the ghetto which includes the cultural ghetto" (Désir, cited in Lloyd, 1996). This statement

reflects the tendency of French mainstream anti-racism to frame racism in the context of

human rights, stressing the individual's right to freedom and equality despite group-based

discrimination.

Universalist calls for the fading out of difference through the assimilation of minority

cultures have blended into a politics of integration which, although recognising their

existence, sees all cultural groups as internally homogeneous (Wieviorka, 1997; Yuval-Davis,

1997). The concern displayed with the failure of both approaches, both as principles and as

policies of western states, is evident in much of the contemporary liberal versus

communitarian debate. Both sides often arrive at similar conclusions when discussing the

handling of 'illiberal groups' (Kymlicka, 1989), perceived as unable or 'unwilling' to become a

4 Taguieff's concentration on new right-wing discourse and the lack of attention he pays to the broader realms of institutional racism may be put down to his situation in the French context where such debates have not come as strongly to the fore. This is due, in part, to the success of the Front National, a phenomenon only mirrored more recently in other European countries (e.g. Switzerland and Austria).

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seamless part of western society. The view which sees minority ethnic or racialised groups as

responsible for what is often viewed as their failure to adjust to the demands of the states in

which they live fails to problematise the inequality of the power relationships which govern

the way we live in 'multicultural' societies.

Consequently, culturalist racism, rather than being a clever mechanism initiated by

new Right-wing parties to gain face, permeates state institutional and, thus, individual

conceptions of difference conceived as 'race'-based. It therefore cannot be said to be due to

the failures of anti-racism as Taguieff suggests. Racism of this type is inherent in state,

institutional, class-based and individual participation in the legitimation of an established

dominant culture. Thus, neither is it a new phenomenon.

"There is, no doubt, a specifically French brand of the doctrines of Aryanism,

anthropometry and biological geneticism, but the true 'French ideology' is not to be

found in these: it lies rather in the idea that the culture of the 'land of the Rights of

Man' has been entrusted with a universal mission to educate the human race. There

corresponds to this mission a practise of assimilating dominated populations and a

consequent need to differentiate and rank individuals and groups in terms of their

greater or lesser aptitude for - or resistance to - assimilation." (Balibar,1991)

All western states minimise the effect of the presence of non-national peoples

(minority ethnic and racialised groups) on the societal status quo through assimilation or,

latterly, integration. Whether by playing down (assimilating) or playing on (integrating)

cultural difference, states play a paternalistic role that entrenches racist attitudes. Bauman

describes the process thus: "With the progressive universalisation of the human condition -

which means nothing else but the uprooting of all parochiality and the powers bent on

preserving it, and consequently setting human development free of the stultifying impact of

the accident of birth - that predetermined, stronger-than-human-choice diversity will fade

away" (Bauman, 1997: 48). The continuing co-existence of minority ethnic and religious

groups and people of colour alongside so-called nationals serves as a constant reminder of the

shortcomings of universalist idealism inasmuch as it involves a top-down imposition of

standards, values and behaviour.

The Janus face of universalism

In order to understand the origins of a so-called 'culturalist' racism and its proposed

emergence through anti-racist cultural relativism, it is helpful to examine the relationship

between racism as both discourse and practice and the ideology of universalism that has

defined western thinking about humanity for the last two centuries. By doing this I hope to

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show that the proposal of a 'new' culturalist (rather than biological) racism ignores the

historical evidence that shows that this is no new concept. Antisemitism is the primary

example of this type of 'racism without race'. Moreover, it is ethnic, religious or racialised

difference per se around which racism moulds its arguments for discrimination.

Etienne Balibar (1991) proposes that the negation of difference is central to racist

discourse through his argument for the compatibility of racism and universalism:

"universalism and racism are indeed (determinate) contraries, and this is why each of them

has the other inside itself - or is bound to affect the other from the inside" (Balibar, 1991:

198). Linked as it is to the very foundations of a universalist ideology, emerging out of

Enlightenment philosophy, the belief that moral equality is a natural entitlement of the

'brotherhood of man'5, racism, like sexism, becomes the prism through which we may

understand the very possibility of talking about a universalist ideal. In other words, both

racism and sexism serve to justify the fact that there are always exemptions to inclusion in

universal humanity. This can also explain why several criteria of demarcation may serve to

exclude those seen as different. Culture has provided to this end in some contexts whereas

biology has proved equally effective in others.

Therefore, the semantic nature of the culture versus biology debate enlarged by

Taguieff, obfuscates the point made by Balibar, that racism, in both its biological and cultural

forms, has been inseparable from the task of creating a "general idea of man" (Balibar, 1994:

198), itself confounded by images of superiority and inferiority in which the quest for the

Übermensch is implicit. The construction of universally rational man necessitates a definition

in relation to some Other that, in turn, demands a hierarchisation of human beings, ranked in

relation to the universal ideal. Taken a step further, such categorisations lead to fixing the

boundaries that encompass our definitions of humanity which, in the practices of certain

European philosophical traditions, have been founded upon the Eurocentric perspective that

structures the patterns of exclusion and inclusion from a universal point of view that sees

Europe as its centre.

Balibar's proposal that racism and universalism, rather than being reducible to one

another, contain each within itself leads to a constant questioning of "who you are in a certain

social world, why there are some compulsory places in this world to which you must adapt

yourself, imposing upon yourself a certain univocal identity" (Balibar, 1994: 200). Racism

provides the answer to the universal dilemma which seeks to homogenise us when, in fact we

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feel different and strive towards uniqueness. It is because there is difference that these

feelings are aroused in us and it is because there are Others who point out this very difference

that we are sometimes compelled to exclude or enact violence against them. Racism is

inextricable from universalism and, thus, apparently perennial, because:

"we are different, and, tautologically because difference is the universal essence of

what we are - not singular, individual difference, but collective differences, made of

analogies and, ultimately, of similarities. The core of this mode of thought might

very well be this common logic: differences among men are differences among sets

of similar individuals (which for this reason can be 'identified')" (Balibar, 1994: 200)

Taking this into account, the reaction of anti-racism should concern itself less with

what specific weapons are used to point out difference or model a hierarchisation of peoples.

Rather, racism for Balibar should be seen as a "mode of thought, that is to say a mode of

connecting not only words with objects, but more profoundly, words with images, in order to

create concepts" (Balibar, 1994: 200). Challenging racism thus means changing a way of

thinking which has become essential to the view of our western selves, created in the tradition

of modern European Enlightenment philosophy and pervasive of daily thought and behaviour.

Balibar's historically-based argument is useful in pointing out the problems involved

in the new racism thesis. By relating both cultural and biological arguments for the

subordination of the racialised in society to the core of universalism, Balibar successfully

points out the Janus-faced nature of ideals such as individual human rights. Their location in a

universalising tendency that grants the right of individual freedom while concomitantly

perceiving and classifying minority groups as internally homogeneous is especially

problematic when used in anti-racist discourse. However, Balibar's emphasis on 'feelings' of

difference - essentially individual - detracts somewhat from the force of his argument.

Implying that racism is bound up with feeling different to others unlike ourselves may be seen

as implying that feelings can be changed by challenging individual prejudices or allegiances

alone. Despite his critique of Taguieff, Balibar may be read as falling into a similar trap by

avoiding an institutional and thus, political reading of racism. By seeing racism as a 'mode of

thought' Balibar avoids talking explicitly about racism in terms of the uneven power relations

exercised in contemporary societies. However, if we read Balibar from such a structural

perspective it is possible to see racism as so ingrained in both the institutions of state policy

and practice and the ideologies that guide them that it appears to be like a 'mode of thought' or

a fixed attitude.

5 The phrase 'Brotherhood of Man' is used by Immanuel Wallerstein (1988) to point out that it was not inclusive of women but neither of non European, non-white men.

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Rejecting 'race' as a critical concept

Paul Gilroy (1998) has recently called for an end to the use of 'race' as a critical

concept. His proposal, I suggest, may be linked to Balibar's demonstration of the dangers in

essentialising either the biological or cultural signifiers of difference purportedly used in

'original' and 'neo' racisms respectively. It can also be seen as emerging from Gilroy's

increasingly critical stance on the appropriation of anti-racism by institutions and self-

interested lobbies (1992) and his strong opposition to the de-politicisation of anti-racism as a

viable movement - "a field from which politics has been banished, and where the easy

invocation of 'race' is regular confirmation of the retreat of the political" (Gilroy, 1998: 839).

Gilroy bases a substantial part of his argument upon the importance of contemporary

developments in technology which create "new histories of visuality and perception" (Gilroy,

1998: 839) and radically transform notions of 'absolute identity' from which new and

competing subjectivities emerge.

"Have you, has your body been scanned?", asks Gilroy. "Do you recognise its

changing optic density? If so, I would like you to consider that development as

another sign that we can let the old visual signatures of 'race' go. Having waved them

farewell, it is possible that we shall do a better job of countering the racisms, the

injustices, that they brought into being if we make a more consistent effort to de-

nature and de-ontologize 'race' and thereby to disaggregate raciologies" (Gilroy,

1998: 839).

What Gilroy is asserting should not be confused with Taguieff's rejection of biology

in favour of culture in the quest to understand racist ideologies. Rather, 'race' can no longer

be an effective classificatory category, even in the political terms in which it has been

employed (for example in the discourse on 'political blackness') because of the way in which

it has been commodified in daily life. On the one hand, as Gilroy points out, if even anti-

racist activists retain racial definitions of difference what chance is there of convincing others

that in real terms it has no meaning. On the other, the pervasive usage of racial categorisation

in the domain of advertising and the media, promoting difference as positive, has

paradoxically led to the situation in which 'race' cannot be abandoned because in that world

of "privatised, corporate multiculturalism…racial alterity has acquired an important

commercial value" (Gilroy, 1998: 843).

The problem of evoking 'race' as a critical concept, and, I add, most likely the reason

why culture seems now to dominate racist discourse, is that we no longer so readily equate

observable differences with consequential physical realities. The unimaginable speed of

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recent developments in technology, but also the first-hand knowledge brought about by

greater mobility, have made the theoretical notion of biological racial difference untenable:

"On what scale is human sameness, human diversity now to be calibrated?… In the

instability of scale that characterises our episteme, how is racialised and racialising identity to

be imagined when we know that it has already been imaged?" (Gilroy, 1998: 843-4).

What these observations bring Gilroy to is an understanding, in accordance with

Balibar, that to conceive of racism, to develop useful critical concepts and to tentatively

reformulate anti-racism, it is imperative to historically locate the unfurling of the notion of

'race'. Such a task requires the relation of macro historical conditions to congruent subjective

developments in individuals' self-understandings. 'Scientific' racism, for Gilroy,

accompanying the onset of modernity, became the point at which "enlightenment and myth"

(Gilroy, 1998: 843) met. Accompanied by nationality, the bonds created by 'race', legitimated

by their couching in the modern language of 'provable' biological science, gave meaning to

our pre-modern, instinctive understandings of ourselves. Thus, "'race' may be modernity's

most pernicious signature. It articulated reason and unreason. It knitted together science and

superstition" (idem). Biological 'race' and the practice of racism allowed pre-modern

knowledge about modes of belonging to persist in an age in which the non-reasonable was

otherwise scorned. This echoes Balibar's (1994) claim that racism itself created its own

communities, grounded in the safety of sameness which the modern Enlightenment project

and its quest for universalism engendered. Communities of (homogeneous) identity were

possible where overriding ideology placed them at the top of a universal hierarchy.

Gilroy does not, indeed cannot, provide the answers to the dilemmas he poses in his

provocative paper. He is, like most contemporary students of 'race', racism and anti-racism,

haunted by the problem inherent in the recognition of the critical futility of employing 'race'

as a category and the concomitant realisation that, without these tried and tested concepts,

anti-racism increasingly loses meaning. This is the point of Gilroy's anger in his 1992

declaration of the 'End of anti-racism' where he condemns anti-racism in its institutional,

party-political and anti-fascist forms, an anti-racism that

"trivialises the struggle against racism and isolates it from other political

antagonisms - from the contradiction between capital and labour, from the battle

between men and women. It suggests that racism can be eliminated on its own

because it is readily extricable from everything else" (Gilroy, 1992: 50).

Gilroy's proposal to abolish 'race' as a critical concept should not, however, be

confused with a denial of anti-racism as a necessary principle and practice. Gilroy reflects the

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significant changes taking place amongst organised anti-racists since his observation of anti-

racism's crisis in 1992. Particularly in the British context, from which Gilroy wrote, a series

of events marked the turning point for an anti-racism overtaken by interest groups, political

parties and an anti-fascist discourse bearing little resemblance to the institutional racism

experience in contemporary society. The inquiry into the death of Black teenager Stephen

Lawrence and the mobilisation by Bangladeshis against the election of a British National

Party candidate in the Tower Hamlets area of London brought about a less entrenched anti-

racism. Campaigns of this nature were the first to be both broad-based, attracting a record rate

of public support and community-led, signifying the acceptance of the end of an appropriated

anti-racism (interview with NAAR, 1999). In London, and equivalent cities, the positive

proliferation of Black culture alongside the disproportionate violence and discrimination

against racialised communities makes a rejection of 'race' as a means of classification

possible. The paradox of a situation in which Blackness permeates daily experience to such an

extent to make it banal highlights the outrageousness of targeting this group over any other

for unequal treatment.

This current reality connects to the points made by both Gilroy and Balibar in the

former's proposal to banish 'race' from anti-racist discourse and in the latter's reminder that

dwelling on categorisation (science versus culture) will not change the marginalised situation

of the racialised. Tackling the phenomenon at its structural, political core appears, therefore,

to be the only way of usefully combating racism. Moreover, an overemphasis on

categorisation, particularly in attempts to 'fight racism on its own terms', as suggested by

Taguieff in his warning to anti-racism to note parallel shifts in racist discourse, have already

proved unreliable. Gilroy makes this point by referring to the problems inherent in pragmatic

stances that adopt racialised terminology. This is further echoed by Modood (1997) who

explains how the emphasis on 'political blackness' that dominated British anti-racism during

the 1970s and 1980s resulted in the exclusion of Muslims from the anti-racist struggle. As

racism is necessarily a heterogeneous phenomenon so too must anti-racisms be developed that

include, to the maximum, the various voices of racialised and ethnic minority communities in

western societies. The final section of the paper will attempt to draw together the main points

made by illustrating initiatives been taken to this end.

Anti-racist responses

Anti-racism movements in Europe represent a diverse range of associations and

platforms, differing significantly from country to country. This lack of unity has been

perceived as leading anti-racism into crisis (Gilroy, 1992; CARF, 1999) mainly inasmuch as

conflicting viewpoints become entrenched thus denying the possibility of co-operation. This

14

problem has been further confounded in recent years with the introduction of various

institutional initiatives for tackling racism. Movements often find themselves in uneasy

collaboration with supranational institutions such as the European Commission risking

outright rejection which denies them any influence over pan-European processes. This is

reflected by the views of the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism6:

In terms of European Union… There was money going out to fund anti-racist projects.

I mean nobody's going to be purist and say we don't want the money because we're all

desperate for money, without you can't do your work, if you haven't got any money

you're just going to collapse. But certainly from our perspective - I don't think we got

any money from the European Union at all - is that I think what was funded was not

anti-racist work, was cultural work, multicultural work. The best way to get funding

was multicultural work not stuff that was going to be critical of state institutions.

(interview with CARF, 1999)

Representation is another issue confounding collaboration with transnational

institutional initiatives with many organisations insisting on Black and ethnic minority

leadership and others still rejecting the significance of this from of empowerment. Amongst

coalition based movements, recent interviews that I carried out with activists revealed a

growing tendency to go beyond these perennial stumbling blocks. Organisations such as the

National Assembly Against Racism and the 1990 Trust in the UK, while stressing Black

leadership, did not refuse co-operation with other organisations sharing their basic aims on

both national and international levels. This view is illustrated in the following interview

extract with the National Assembly Against Racism7:

"The sort of defining point of the National Assembly is (1) that the people who

experience racism, that is in the first instance today, Black - that is Asian, African,

Caribbean people in Britain - have to play the leading role in the fight against racism

and that is not just a matter of lip-service that has to be in any organisation written in

and constitutionally organised… That's number one and then number two, that the

anti-racist movement has to be an alliance, it can't be one particular current imposing

its view, analysis and agenda on the whole movement and therefore the way the anti-

racist movement has to work - or how the National Assembly has to work - is that it

has to discuss and take its own initiative, fight against every obvious appearance of

racism in this society but it also has to be willing to support and promote the issues

and campaigns taken up by others if they're genuinely against racism. And that it may

6 A representative of the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism was interviewed by the author in November 1999. 7 A representative of the National Assembly Against Racism was interviewed by the author in November 1999.

15

have to work in coalition with other organisations in order to take forward specific

campaigns and initiatives" (interview with NAAR, 1999)

Both of the above comments reflect the importance of tackling racism from a

perspective that is politically critical, Black and ethnic minority led and based on broad

alliances. This approach poses a direct challenge to both state and international institutions

charged with dealing with racism and sectors of non-government that concentrate on overt

racism and neo-Nazism on the one hand, or the promotion of multiculturalism seen as

insufficient on the other. These alliance-based movements call for anti-racism to fight racism

beyond its crude fascist forms and on the basis of a structural politicised strategy that rejects

the notion that multicultural understanding is the panacea for racist 'attitudes'. Both Balibar

and Gilroy's arguments for the need to get beyond both 'cultural' and 'biological' explanations

for racism are evident here. These arguments are apparent in the following comments:

Concerning multiculturalist approaches:

"[In the] Overcome Racism Now initiative their8 whole thing was to say people are

making an exaggerated fuss about this because there are actually very tiny numbers of

Black people in these cities so they wanted the figures to show there's only really 2%.

I said well, excuse me, you know in London there are 33-34% Black and ethnic

minority people and our point not that this is small, it's big and therefore London and

government and London government have to change to reflect the reality of London

not to try to push it into a corner". (interview with NAAR, 1999)

Concerning institutionalised identity politics:

I think our perspective has enabled us to critique identity politics and see what's wrong

with them. I mean, for instance there was a time in the 1980s after the riots here

where different strategies for fighting racism were advocated like racial awareness

training which is very much based on identity politics and was based on the idea that

racism equals prejudice. So, the idea was that the way to get rid of racism was to

actually get people who were working in the police force, in local government and to

take them for racial awareness training and to basically, it sort of worked that White

people were given a grilling about their own personal racism and so they were made

to feel terribly guilty and break down and cry. And we were always very much

opposed to all those things because, you know, we have.. our politics came out of the

belief that racism isn't about individual prejudice, it's about institutions, what

institutions do. And in many ways a lot of the things that we have said over the years

have been vindicated now with the Stephen Lawrence inquiry and the ruling about 8 The interviewee is referring the Italian initiators of the project, ARCI.

16

institutionalised racism." (interview with CARF, 1999)

These illustrations of the concerns of anti-racist activists support the main points

made in the theoretical body of the paper. Progressive coalitions of anti-racists tend to reject

culturalist arguments for the promotion of racial equality as advocated by Taguieff. In

practice this is reflected in a justified scepticism of depoliticised, multiculturally oriented

campaigns or "something celebrating cultural diversity or…bringing different ethnic groups

together. I think those were the sort of things the European Union were interested in"

(interview with CARF, 1999). But there is also a rejection of what can be termed 'biological'

or 'race' based arguments in support of Gilroy. This runs along two lines. Firstly, there is

strong realisation that targeting neo-Nazism and the far right alone, though vital, is

insufficient. Secondly, the emphasis placed on Black and ethnic minority leadership in broad

alliances negates treating 'race' as a special mode of classification. As Gilroy claims, the

familiarity, at least in modern urban societies, with Blackness empties 'race' even of its

pragmatic significance. The aim today is not to talk about the racialised. Rather the leadership

by Black and ethnic minority people of organisations reflecting their concerns becomes a

norm that may help towards accepting non-whiteness or ethnic difference as a fact of life

rather than an ‘anthropological category’.

Conclusions

Three main points have been made in the course of this paper that are crucial to any

project that aims to lay the ground for a rethinking of anti-racism as discourse and practice.

Firstly, coming to an understanding of the structural embeddedness of racism in

western societies necessitates a historical perspective showing how the universalising

rationalisation of human differences effectively shaped the acceptability of exclusion, leading,

in the worst case, to the Nazi Shoah.

Secondly, the current proposal to draw a line between 'old' biological racism and

'new' cultural racism denies the point that aversion to difference per se and not particular

biological or cultural traits leads to the persistence of racism over time. The link made by

writers such as Taguieff to the insistence of anti-racism on the diversity of equal cultures can

only be seen as an exasperated (and in some senses justifiable) dig at contemporary

'multiculturalism'.

17

Finally, an abandonment of 'race' as a critical concept is proposed in an era when

intermingling between different ethnic groups and the proliferation of Black and other

minority cultures increases yet racism continues to exist. A reframing of anti-racism as a

political project that engages directly with the structures into which it is built is necessary to

avoid a racist discourse that stresses identity, community, culture and tradition and neglects

intersectionality and, most importantly, politics.

18

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