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/324/ Reifying Race ft. Kenan Malik
🕑 Added 2023-02-28 07:00:02 +0000 UTCOn the mainstreaming of racial thinking.
We welcome back author and broadcaster Kenan Malik to talk about his new book, Not So Black and White. The book presents a historical account of how racial thinking has accompanied the spread of notions of equality and common humanity. How is it that many supposed humanitarians in the past were often racists?
And how have we reached a point where today, many liberals and supposed anti-racists sustain racial thinking? How have notions of global whiteness/blackness come to dominate the discourse?
We also discuss the 'post-liberal' critics of wokeness and their shortcomings, and whether the far right is gaining from the reification of race.
Links:
- Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics, Kenan Malik, Hurst
- /70/ In Defence of Universalism ft. Kenan Malik
Comments
Daniel L
Kenan made a very good point about diversity substituting for equality, and how they're obviously not the same thing
Eli S
I think certain cases of ideological racism and antiracism need to be examined in greater depth to really explain it beyond the limited extent offered here. For instance, what function does antiracism serve in environments where white people are a demographic minority? Even at its most pessimistic, "antiracism" would explain economic inequality in, say, California in terms of white dominance, but of course in a state where whites are... 43% of the population (did I get that right?) you could simply vote away white power and be done with it -- in fact, "antiracism" urges you to do this in so many words. The question, then, is both why the "antiracists" haven't actually done it (beyond posting "All I want for Christmas is white genocide" on Twitter), and what function they are serving in the system as a whole.
