Conclusion

The conclusion notes that we are living in a time when traditional liberal democratic politics is in decay, but where it is not yet clear what is emerging in its place. The author argues that this stasis creates the possibility for the re-emergence of an emancipatory anti-racism.

Hate crime

This chapter examines ‘race hate crime’ policy as an expression of the decline of the emancipatory dynamic of the anti-racism of the 1960s and 1970s. The author makes the case for treating hate crimes as an example of authoritarian multicultural anti-racism that is concerned with social control, rather than human emancipation. The chapter highlights ways in which hate crime policy treats racialised minorities as victims who need state protection. The author argues that hate crime policy is part of the broader erosion of civil liberties that has seen the rise of the prison population in the USA and the creation of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) and other forms of preventative policing in the UK.

Racisms and the Race Relations approach

Beginning in the 1960s the UK government has developed the policy area of ‘race relations’. This chapter examines the intellectual antecedents of this policy area from its initial development in the USA at the end of the First World War, through its internationalisation after the Second World War (via the United Nations), to its place in UK ‘race relations’ policy. The chapter also outlines some of the key features of Race Relations theory and policy.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the main themes of the book. It notes that, since the 1980s, there has been a crisis of anti-racist theory and practice. It also notes that sectarianism in Northern Ireland has been largely excluded from attempts to rethink anti-racism. The chapter argues that, as part of the attempt to rethink anti-racism, there is a need to clear up confusions. The author suggests that the contradictory uses of ‘race’ and ethnicity is one of the key confusions in the literature on racism and anti-racism.

Anti-racism and disavowed racism

Anti-racism is commonly assumed to be the opposite of racism. This chapter challenges this common-sense idea. The chapter examines the discrediting of scientific racism in the 1930s and locates this in the context of anti-colonial movements for national independence and wider agitations for racial equality. The chapter also explores the ways in which the ‘race problem’ played a role in the transition from the UK, to the USA, as the dominant global power. The chapter outlines a number of different, sometimes mutually antagonistic, forms of anti-racism.

Differentiating racism and sectarianism

This chapter examines the debate regarding whether or not sectarianism should be thought of as something distinct from racism. The author argues that there are many forms of racism – including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia – and that sectarianism is a form of racism. A common error in anti-racist theory and practice is to reduce racism to the oppression of Black people, rather than seeing skin colour as only one of a number of possible markers of difference. We should think in terms of racisms, plural, rather than racism, singular.

From civil rights to multiculturalism

This chapter highlights the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s and early 1970s as an example of an anti-racist (anti-sectarian) movement with an emancipatory dynamic. The chapter traces the containment of this emancipatory dynamic and points to the role of official anti-racism in containing the dynamic. The chapter then goes on to look at the peace process and the rise of a sectarianised multicultural anti-racism.

Rethinking anti-racism

This chapter draws on the work of Karl Marx to critique the Race Relations approach. The author argues that conventional social science (which underpins Race Relations theory) is, in its methodological approach to understanding the world, inherently elitist. This is so because it artificially separates understanding the world (theory) and acting in the world (practice) and because it allocates a special role to experts. Race Relations theory and practice tends to view ordinary people as inclined towards racism and allocates a special role to enlightened experts in tackling racisms.