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To cite this Article Lentin, Alana(2000) ''Race', Racism and Anti-racism: Challenging Contemporary Classifications', Social
Identities, 6: 1, 91 — 106
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Social Identities, Volume 6, Number 1, 2000
ALANA LENTIN
European University Institute
ABSTRACT: This paper argues for the revisiting of classicatory 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
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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 conict 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
dened 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.
1350-4630 Print/1363-0296 On-line/00/010091-16 Ó 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd
92 Alana Lentin
theorisation of superior and inferior ‘races’ and made ‘ofcial’ the notion that
the existence of human ‘races’ has no scientic bearing. What evolved, how-
ever, 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 differen-
tiation as equally valorised presents no problem to left-leaning, western
thinkers in so far as it is contained in anthropological eld 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 inux of immigration’ (Habermas, 1995, p. 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
inuence 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 racist opposition was based on 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, justied working class phobias against
‘Race’, Racism and Anti-racism: Challenging Contemporary Classications 95
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
conict. 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
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the new racism thesis provided an important intellectual resource for the
96 Alana Lentin
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.
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, p. 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 denition 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 categorisa-
tions lead to xing the boundaries that encompass our denitions 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.
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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, p. 200)
Racism provides the answer to the universal dilemma that seeks to homogenise
us when, in fact, we 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 univer-
salism 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 ‘identied’). (Balibar, 1994, p. 200)
Taking this into account, the reaction of anti-racism should concern itself less
with what specic 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, p. 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
‘Race’, Racism and Anti-racism: Challenging Contemporary Classications 99
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 xed attitude.
‘race’, racism and anti-racism, haunted by the problem inherent in the recogni-
tion of the critical futility of employing ‘race’ as a category and the concomitant
realisation that, without these tried and tested concepts, anti-racism increas-
ingly 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, p. 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 reects the signicant changes taking place amongst organised anti-
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ethnic minority communities in western societies. The nal section of the paper
will attempt to draw together the main points made by illustrating initiatives
that have been taken to this end.
Anti-racist Responses
Anti-racism movements in Europe represent a diverse range of associations
and platforms, differing signicantly from country to country. This lack of
unity has been perceived as leading anti-racism into crisis (Gilroy, 1992;
interview with CARF, 1999), mainly inasmuch as conicting viewpoints be-
come entrenched thus denying the possibility of co-operation. This problem
has been further confounded in recent years with the introduction of various
institutional initiatives for tackling racism. Movements often nd themselves in
uneasy collaboration with supranational institutions such as the European
Commission, risking outright rejection which denies them any inuence over
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National Assembly has to work — is that it has to discuss and take its
own initiative, ght 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 have to work in coalition with other organisations in
order to take forward specic campaigns and initiatives. (Interview with
NAAR, 1999)
Both of the above comments reect 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 insufcient, on the other.
These alliance-based movements call for anti-racism to ght racism beyond its
crude fascist forms and on the basis of a structural politicised strategy that
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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 their7 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 gures 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 is not that this is small, it’s big and therefore London and
government and London government have to change to reect 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 ghting 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
come 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
104 Alana Lentin
things that we have said over the years have been vindicated now with
the Stephen Lawrence inquiry and the ruling about institutionalised
racism. (Interview with CARF, 1999)
But there is also a rejection of what can be termed ‘biological’ or ‘race’ based
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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 insufcient. Secondly, the emphasis placed on black and ethnic min-
ority leadership in broad alliances negates treating ‘race’ as a special mode of
classication. As Gilroy claims, the familiarity with blackness, at least in
modern urban societies, empties ‘race’ even of its pragmatic signicance. The
aim today is not to talk about the racialised. Rather, the leadership by black
and ethnic minority people of organisations reecting 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 justiable) dig at contemporary ‘multicultural-
ism’.
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
‘Race’, Racism and Anti-racism: Challenging Contemporary Classications 105
Notes
1. 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 rst stage of a project also looking at movements in several other
western European countries. The project will eventually group together a
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References
Anthias, F.( 1997) ‘Anti-Racism, Multiculturalism and Struggles for a Multicul-
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Balibar, E. (1994 Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy Before
and After Marx, New York: Routledge.
Balibar, E. and I. Wallerstein (1991) Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities,
London: Verso.
Barker. M. (1981) The New Racism, London: Junction Books.
106 Alana Lentin