UK Anti-Racism Movement Challenges
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This week we will look at the attempts made to fight against racism. Anti-racism has been a feature of both social movements in civil society, and governmental bodies such as the British Commission for Racial Equality. As such, anti-racism cannot be said to be a unitary phenomenon. The diverse range of discourses, practices and policies under the heading of anti-racism means that we can only talk about it in the plural. Broadly speaking, anti-racism can be seen as divided between those discourses and practices that are more closely allied with a state-based vision, focused on the rule of law and institutionalized measures, and those that, on the contrary, see the state as a source – rather than a solution – to racism. What is the difference between these two approaches and how have they developed. In Britain, what are some of the ways in which anti-racism has taken form, e.g. in the trade union movement, through the intersection with music, from different political standpoints, as ‘anti-fascist’, or as anti-colonialist in inspiration? Looking at anti-racism from the 1960s to the present day, we shall tease out the many guises of anti-racism and ask if it is enough merely to be ‘against’ racism?
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UK Anti-Racism Movement Challenges
- 2. Overview… •Why study anti- racism? •Key moments in UK anti-racist history. •The heterogeneity of anti-racism. •What challenges face the anti-racist movement today?
- 3. What is anti- “Racism and ethnic discrimination are under continuous historical and sociological examination. But anti-racism is consigned to the status of a ‘cause’, fit only for platitudes of support or denouncement” Alaistair Bonnet (2000)
- 4. Anti-racism depends on the understanding of
- 5. Anti-racism depends on the understanding of • Racism = ignorant attitudes.
- 6. Anti-racism depends on the understanding of • Racism = ignorant attitudes. • Racism = pathological.
- 7. Anti-racism depends on the understanding of • Racism = ignorant attitudes. • Racism = pathological. • Racism = power + prejudice.
- 8. Anti-racism depends on the understanding of • Racism = ignorant attitudes. • Racism = pathological. • Racism = power + prejudice. • Racism = structural / systemic.
- 9. OK, but why study anti- racism?
- 10. OK, but why study anti- racism? Our views on racism are mainly shaped by anti- racists.
- 11. OK, but why study anti- racism? Our views on racism are mainly shaped by anti- racists.
- 12. OK, but why study anti- racism? Our views on racism are mainly shaped by anti- racists.
- 13. OK, but why study anti- racism? Our views on racism are mainly shaped by anti- racists.
- 14. OK, but why study anti- racism? Our views on racism are mainly shaped by anti- racists.
- 15. OK, but why study anti- racism? Our views on racism are mainly shaped by anti- racists.
- 16. OK, but why study anti- racism? Our views on racism are mainly shaped by anti- racists.
- 18. Anti-racism: Disunited movement, confused discourse • Anti-racism = discourse & practice.
- 19. Anti-racism: Disunited movement, confused discourse • Anti-racism = discourse & practice. • The importance of unity for collective action.
- 20. Anti-racism: Disunited movement, confused discourse • Anti-racism = discourse & practice. • The importance of unity for collective action. • The anti-racist “continuum”.
- 22. The anti-racist continuum Racism is individual Solutions to racism come via the state
- 23. The anti-racist continuum Racism is Racism is structural individual The state is part of Solutions to the problem racism come via the state
- 25. Central questions in anti-racism Aims & target audiences
- 26. Central questions in anti-racism Aims & target audiences •The role of national identity.
- 27. Central questions in anti-racism Aims & target audiences •The role of national identity. •The youth.
- 28. Central questions in anti-racism Aims & target audiences •The role of national identity. •The youth. Autonomy
- 29. Central questions in anti-racism Aims & target audiences •The role of national identity. •The youth. Autonomy •Who speaks for who?
- 30. Central questions in anti-racism Aims & target audiences •The role of national identity. •The youth. Autonomy •Who speaks for who? •State anti-racisms?
- 32. “Fighting the fascists” Anti- fascism or anti- racism?
- 33. “Fighting the fascists” Anti- fascism or anti- racism?
- 34. “Fighting the fascists” Anti- fascism or anti- racism?
- 35. The Battle of Cable Street
- 36. The Battle of Cable Street In October 1936, Jews, Anarchists and Socialists fought Moseley’s fascists in the east End of London. The issues were very similar to the ones being fought over today: immigration and its effects!
- 37. The Battle of Cable Street In October 1936, Jews, Anarchists and Socialists fought Moseley’s fascists in the east End of London. The issues were very similar to the ones being fought over today: immigration and its effects!
- 38. Anti-racism as a national struggle “The racists are a problem because they are descended from the brown and black-shirted enemies of earlier days. To oppose them is a patriotic act; their own use of national flags and symbols is nothing more than a sham masking their terroristic inclinations” Paul Gilroy (1997).
- 39. The Anti Nazi League
- 40. The Anti Nazi League
- 41. The Anti Nazi League • Never Again
- 42. The Anti Nazi League • Never Again • Organising on a wide a base as possible.
- 43. The Anti Nazi League • Never Again • Organising on a wide a base as possible. • “Nazi scum, get off our streets!”
- 44. Youth & Pop Culture Rock against Racism
- 45. Kick it Out!
- 46. Kick it Out!
- 47. Who speaks for who? • Paternalism & tokenism? • Lived experience defines anti- racism.
- 49. “Municipal” anti-racism • A narrow definition of anti- racism.
- 50. “Municipal” anti-racism • A narrow definition of anti- racism. • Catchy slogans!
- 51. For Diversity, Against Discrimination hurry up harry
- 52. Organising for Migrants’ Rights •Asylum rights •Against detention & deportation •No borders
Hinweis der Redaktion
- Anti-racism is responsible for the way we analyse racism today.\n
- \n
- What do you think anti-racism is?\n\nAs Bonnet, in his book Anti-Racism (2000) remarks, while racism has been studied from a wide range of perspectives, anti-racism has generally been ignored.\n\nIt is assumed that anti-racism is merely the opposite of racism. But it is much more than that. \n
- \nAnti-racism can take different forms depending on how racism is interpreted and explained. \n\nAs we saw in week 1, there are different ways of interpreting racism:\n\nThere are many who believe racism is a problem of individual ignorance. \n\nStill others see it as a pathology, like a political disease. Such a view sees racism as being generally confined to the far right or to historical periods such as Nazism. \n\n In the 1980s, accepting that racism was more than just a matter of individual attitudes, some argued that racism = power+prejudice. This means that individuals in power use their position to put their own prejudicial attitudes into practice by discriminating against others. \n\nThis view is based on the “bad apples” theory which could be seen in the reaction to events such as the Abu Ghraib scandal. Rather than looking at the possibility that the US army is institutionally racist or that the atmosphere of the ‘war on terror’ provided a structural legitimation for the actions of individual soldiers, the argument used by top military officials and government was that Abu Ghraib did not represent the US army but was the result of the actions of a few prejudiced individuals who misused their power. \n\n4. In contrast, a fourth position argues for seeing racism as structural, as something that is to do with how the state and its institutions are run. Such an approach is less concerned with racism as an individual attitude. While it does not ignore the existence of individual racists and the far right, it sees them as existing as part of an overall political culture which makes racism possible. \n
- \nAnti-racism can take different forms depending on how racism is interpreted and explained. \n\nAs we saw in week 1, there are different ways of interpreting racism:\n\nThere are many who believe racism is a problem of individual ignorance. \n\nStill others see it as a pathology, like a political disease. Such a view sees racism as being generally confined to the far right or to historical periods such as Nazism. \n\n In the 1980s, accepting that racism was more than just a matter of individual attitudes, some argued that racism = power+prejudice. This means that individuals in power use their position to put their own prejudicial attitudes into practice by discriminating against others. \n\nThis view is based on the “bad apples” theory which could be seen in the reaction to events such as the Abu Ghraib scandal. Rather than looking at the possibility that the US army is institutionally racist or that the atmosphere of the ‘war on terror’ provided a structural legitimation for the actions of individual soldiers, the argument used by top military officials and government was that Abu Ghraib did not represent the US army but was the result of the actions of a few prejudiced individuals who misused their power. \n\n4. In contrast, a fourth position argues for seeing racism as structural, as something that is to do with how the state and its institutions are run. Such an approach is less concerned with racism as an individual attitude. While it does not ignore the existence of individual racists and the far right, it sees them as existing as part of an overall political culture which makes racism possible. \n
- \nAnti-racism can take different forms depending on how racism is interpreted and explained. \n\nAs we saw in week 1, there are different ways of interpreting racism:\n\nThere are many who believe racism is a problem of individual ignorance. \n\nStill others see it as a pathology, like a political disease. Such a view sees racism as being generally confined to the far right or to historical periods such as Nazism. \n\n In the 1980s, accepting that racism was more than just a matter of individual attitudes, some argued that racism = power+prejudice. This means that individuals in power use their position to put their own prejudicial attitudes into practice by discriminating against others. \n\nThis view is based on the “bad apples” theory which could be seen in the reaction to events such as the Abu Ghraib scandal. Rather than looking at the possibility that the US army is institutionally racist or that the atmosphere of the ‘war on terror’ provided a structural legitimation for the actions of individual soldiers, the argument used by top military officials and government was that Abu Ghraib did not represent the US army but was the result of the actions of a few prejudiced individuals who misused their power. \n\n4. In contrast, a fourth position argues for seeing racism as structural, as something that is to do with how the state and its institutions are run. Such an approach is less concerned with racism as an individual attitude. While it does not ignore the existence of individual racists and the far right, it sees them as existing as part of an overall political culture which makes racism possible. \n
- \nAnti-racism can take different forms depending on how racism is interpreted and explained. \n\nAs we saw in week 1, there are different ways of interpreting racism:\n\nThere are many who believe racism is a problem of individual ignorance. \n\nStill others see it as a pathology, like a political disease. Such a view sees racism as being generally confined to the far right or to historical periods such as Nazism. \n\n In the 1980s, accepting that racism was more than just a matter of individual attitudes, some argued that racism = power+prejudice. This means that individuals in power use their position to put their own prejudicial attitudes into practice by discriminating against others. \n\nThis view is based on the “bad apples” theory which could be seen in the reaction to events such as the Abu Ghraib scandal. Rather than looking at the possibility that the US army is institutionally racist or that the atmosphere of the ‘war on terror’ provided a structural legitimation for the actions of individual soldiers, the argument used by top military officials and government was that Abu Ghraib did not represent the US army but was the result of the actions of a few prejudiced individuals who misused their power. \n\n4. In contrast, a fourth position argues for seeing racism as structural, as something that is to do with how the state and its institutions are run. Such an approach is less concerned with racism as an individual attitude. While it does not ignore the existence of individual racists and the far right, it sees them as existing as part of an overall political culture which makes racism possible. \n
- The majority of the explanations that we use in trying to understand racism were constructed from an anti-racist perspective.\n\nFollowing the Second World War it became important to explain why race and racism were dangerous ideas - as before they had been generally accepted.\n\nThose who took on the task of explaining racism were mainly social scientists, historians, and other scholars as well as educators who cared about bringing an end to racism.\n\nIf we want to understand racism, therefore, we should try to get inside the heads of these anti-racist thinkers.\n\nIt is also important to recognise that their ideas about racism often vary greatly and that they are open to criticism. It is not just because someone is against a ‘bad thing’ like racism that their position is intellectually sound.\n\nAs sociologists, we need to look at anti-racism as rigorously as we look at other social and political phenomena.\n\nSo who were some of these influential anti-racists?\n\nFranz Boas - father of modern anthropology. He worked in the late 19th and early 20th century, dying in 1942. His dislike for racial science - which was the prevalent idea at the time - led him to introduce the concept of cultural relativism which , although problematic, was important because it denied the notion that human beings were naturally divided according to a racial (biological) hierarchy. Rather, Boas argued, each cultural was different but equal.\n\nW.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) - was an African American sociologist and the father of civil rights. His books, The Souls of Black Folk and Dusk of Dawn among many others are extremely influential texts.\n\nDu Bois went through many periods in his long life. In the inter-war years, along with people like Boas, he was involved in cranial measurements - a technique used by racial scientists - in order to disprove the prevalent idea that blacks had smaller brains to whites. \n\nLater in his life he was influential in the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured people and joined the Communist party. He also became a pan-Africanist leading him to emigrate to Ghana towards the end of his life where he died. By this time he had become more radical in his approach to racism.\n\n3. Claude Levi-Strauss - anthropologist and father of structuralism.\nLevi-Strauss was influential in the UNESCO project and the Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice it produced.\nLevi-Strauss wrote Race and History in 1960 which became a key anti-racist text, even taught to children in French schools.\n\nHis ideas shaped the idea, promoted by Unesco, that culture and ethnicity are more important than race for explaining human difference. He proposed that the term racism be replaced by what he saw as the more correct ‘ethnocentrism’. \n\nLevi-Strauss was a cultural relativist. He was opposed to assimilation because he believed that all cultures should be allowed to maintain their uniqueness. He therefore had an important impact on multiculturalist ideas. However, his extreme cultural relativism has been criticised because it implies essentially that all ‘cultures’ should remain unchanged over time. His view does not allow for the overall transformation of societies as a result of immigration. \n\nWe can see Levi-Strauss’s ideas about culture as having indirectly influenced the way much of multiculturalist and anti-racist policy-making has been carried out in the UK.\n\n4. Frantz Fanon - we learned about Fanon in Week 2. Fanon’s influence on anti-colonial and black liberation movements such as Black Power in the US is undeniable.\nAlthough Fanon’s focus was more on the experience of the colonised in the Antilles, Algeria or Africa, his views were seen by many involved in radical black movements in the 1960s and 1970s as describing the situation faced by minorities in the West, especially the United States.\n\n5. In this country, many sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists working on racism are motivated by anti-racist concerns. \nThe Institute of Race Relations has been headed up by Sivanandan since he led a rebellion against the original Institute in the 1970s . He and his team combine a concern with research into the causes and effects of racism with a grounding in the radical anti-racist and anti-colonialist movement. \n\n6. My work on anti-racism was motivated by a concern to find out why different types of anti-racism are so different from each other. I found out that it was to do with the way in which they defined racism!\n
- The majority of the explanations that we use in trying to understand racism were constructed from an anti-racist perspective.\n\nFollowing the Second World War it became important to explain why race and racism were dangerous ideas - as before they had been generally accepted.\n\nThose who took on the task of explaining racism were mainly social scientists, historians, and other scholars as well as educators who cared about bringing an end to racism.\n\nIf we want to understand racism, therefore, we should try to get inside the heads of these anti-racist thinkers.\n\nIt is also important to recognise that their ideas about racism often vary greatly and that they are open to criticism. It is not just because someone is against a ‘bad thing’ like racism that their position is intellectually sound.\n\nAs sociologists, we need to look at anti-racism as rigorously as we look at other social and political phenomena.\n\nSo who were some of these influential anti-racists?\n\nFranz Boas - father of modern anthropology. He worked in the late 19th and early 20th century, dying in 1942. His dislike for racial science - which was the prevalent idea at the time - led him to introduce the concept of cultural relativism which , although problematic, was important because it denied the notion that human beings were naturally divided according to a racial (biological) hierarchy. Rather, Boas argued, each cultural was different but equal.\n\nW.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) - was an African American sociologist and the father of civil rights. His books, The Souls of Black Folk and Dusk of Dawn among many others are extremely influential texts.\n\nDu Bois went through many periods in his long life. In the inter-war years, along with people like Boas, he was involved in cranial measurements - a technique used by racial scientists - in order to disprove the prevalent idea that blacks had smaller brains to whites. \n\nLater in his life he was influential in the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured people and joined the Communist party. He also became a pan-Africanist leading him to emigrate to Ghana towards the end of his life where he died. By this time he had become more radical in his approach to racism.\n\n3. Claude Levi-Strauss - anthropologist and father of structuralism.\nLevi-Strauss was influential in the UNESCO project and the Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice it produced.\nLevi-Strauss wrote Race and History in 1960 which became a key anti-racist text, even taught to children in French schools.\n\nHis ideas shaped the idea, promoted by Unesco, that culture and ethnicity are more important than race for explaining human difference. He proposed that the term racism be replaced by what he saw as the more correct ‘ethnocentrism’. \n\nLevi-Strauss was a cultural relativist. He was opposed to assimilation because he believed that all cultures should be allowed to maintain their uniqueness. He therefore had an important impact on multiculturalist ideas. However, his extreme cultural relativism has been criticised because it implies essentially that all ‘cultures’ should remain unchanged over time. His view does not allow for the overall transformation of societies as a result of immigration. \n\nWe can see Levi-Strauss’s ideas about culture as having indirectly influenced the way much of multiculturalist and anti-racist policy-making has been carried out in the UK.\n\n4. Frantz Fanon - we learned about Fanon in Week 2. Fanon’s influence on anti-colonial and black liberation movements such as Black Power in the US is undeniable.\nAlthough Fanon’s focus was more on the experience of the colonised in the Antilles, Algeria or Africa, his views were seen by many involved in radical black movements in the 1960s and 1970s as describing the situation faced by minorities in the West, especially the United States.\n\n5. In this country, many sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists working on racism are motivated by anti-racist concerns. \nThe Institute of Race Relations has been headed up by Sivanandan since he led a rebellion against the original Institute in the 1970s . He and his team combine a concern with research into the causes and effects of racism with a grounding in the radical anti-racist and anti-colonialist movement. \n\n6. My work on anti-racism was motivated by a concern to find out why different types of anti-racism are so different from each other. I found out that it was to do with the way in which they defined racism!\n
- The majority of the explanations that we use in trying to understand racism were constructed from an anti-racist perspective.\n\nFollowing the Second World War it became important to explain why race and racism were dangerous ideas - as before they had been generally accepted.\n\nThose who took on the task of explaining racism were mainly social scientists, historians, and other scholars as well as educators who cared about bringing an end to racism.\n\nIf we want to understand racism, therefore, we should try to get inside the heads of these anti-racist thinkers.\n\nIt is also important to recognise that their ideas about racism often vary greatly and that they are open to criticism. It is not just because someone is against a ‘bad thing’ like racism that their position is intellectually sound.\n\nAs sociologists, we need to look at anti-racism as rigorously as we look at other social and political phenomena.\n\nSo who were some of these influential anti-racists?\n\nFranz Boas - father of modern anthropology. He worked in the late 19th and early 20th century, dying in 1942. His dislike for racial science - which was the prevalent idea at the time - led him to introduce the concept of cultural relativism which , although problematic, was important because it denied the notion that human beings were naturally divided according to a racial (biological) hierarchy. Rather, Boas argued, each cultural was different but equal.\n\nW.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) - was an African American sociologist and the father of civil rights. His books, The Souls of Black Folk and Dusk of Dawn among many others are extremely influential texts.\n\nDu Bois went through many periods in his long life. In the inter-war years, along with people like Boas, he was involved in cranial measurements - a technique used by racial scientists - in order to disprove the prevalent idea that blacks had smaller brains to whites. \n\nLater in his life he was influential in the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured people and joined the Communist party. He also became a pan-Africanist leading him to emigrate to Ghana towards the end of his life where he died. By this time he had become more radical in his approach to racism.\n\n3. Claude Levi-Strauss - anthropologist and father of structuralism.\nLevi-Strauss was influential in the UNESCO project and the Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice it produced.\nLevi-Strauss wrote Race and History in 1960 which became a key anti-racist text, even taught to children in French schools.\n\nHis ideas shaped the idea, promoted by Unesco, that culture and ethnicity are more important than race for explaining human difference. He proposed that the term racism be replaced by what he saw as the more correct ‘ethnocentrism’. \n\nLevi-Strauss was a cultural relativist. He was opposed to assimilation because he believed that all cultures should be allowed to maintain their uniqueness. He therefore had an important impact on multiculturalist ideas. However, his extreme cultural relativism has been criticised because it implies essentially that all ‘cultures’ should remain unchanged over time. His view does not allow for the overall transformation of societies as a result of immigration. \n\nWe can see Levi-Strauss’s ideas about culture as having indirectly influenced the way much of multiculturalist and anti-racist policy-making has been carried out in the UK.\n\n4. Frantz Fanon - we learned about Fanon in Week 2. Fanon’s influence on anti-colonial and black liberation movements such as Black Power in the US is undeniable.\nAlthough Fanon’s focus was more on the experience of the colonised in the Antilles, Algeria or Africa, his views were seen by many involved in radical black movements in the 1960s and 1970s as describing the situation faced by minorities in the West, especially the United States.\n\n5. In this country, many sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists working on racism are motivated by anti-racist concerns. \nThe Institute of Race Relations has been headed up by Sivanandan since he led a rebellion against the original Institute in the 1970s . He and his team combine a concern with research into the causes and effects of racism with a grounding in the radical anti-racist and anti-colonialist movement. \n\n6. My work on anti-racism was motivated by a concern to find out why different types of anti-racism are so different from each other. I found out that it was to do with the way in which they defined racism!\n
- The majority of the explanations that we use in trying to understand racism were constructed from an anti-racist perspective.\n\nFollowing the Second World War it became important to explain why race and racism were dangerous ideas - as before they had been generally accepted.\n\nThose who took on the task of explaining racism were mainly social scientists, historians, and other scholars as well as educators who cared about bringing an end to racism.\n\nIf we want to understand racism, therefore, we should try to get inside the heads of these anti-racist thinkers.\n\nIt is also important to recognise that their ideas about racism often vary greatly and that they are open to criticism. It is not just because someone is against a ‘bad thing’ like racism that their position is intellectually sound.\n\nAs sociologists, we need to look at anti-racism as rigorously as we look at other social and political phenomena.\n\nSo who were some of these influential anti-racists?\n\nFranz Boas - father of modern anthropology. He worked in the late 19th and early 20th century, dying in 1942. His dislike for racial science - which was the prevalent idea at the time - led him to introduce the concept of cultural relativism which , although problematic, was important because it denied the notion that human beings were naturally divided according to a racial (biological) hierarchy. Rather, Boas argued, each cultural was different but equal.\n\nW.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) - was an African American sociologist and the father of civil rights. His books, The Souls of Black Folk and Dusk of Dawn among many others are extremely influential texts.\n\nDu Bois went through many periods in his long life. In the inter-war years, along with people like Boas, he was involved in cranial measurements - a technique used by racial scientists - in order to disprove the prevalent idea that blacks had smaller brains to whites. \n\nLater in his life he was influential in the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured people and joined the Communist party. He also became a pan-Africanist leading him to emigrate to Ghana towards the end of his life where he died. By this time he had become more radical in his approach to racism.\n\n3. Claude Levi-Strauss - anthropologist and father of structuralism.\nLevi-Strauss was influential in the UNESCO project and the Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice it produced.\nLevi-Strauss wrote Race and History in 1960 which became a key anti-racist text, even taught to children in French schools.\n\nHis ideas shaped the idea, promoted by Unesco, that culture and ethnicity are more important than race for explaining human difference. He proposed that the term racism be replaced by what he saw as the more correct ‘ethnocentrism’. \n\nLevi-Strauss was a cultural relativist. He was opposed to assimilation because he believed that all cultures should be allowed to maintain their uniqueness. He therefore had an important impact on multiculturalist ideas. However, his extreme cultural relativism has been criticised because it implies essentially that all ‘cultures’ should remain unchanged over time. His view does not allow for the overall transformation of societies as a result of immigration. \n\nWe can see Levi-Strauss’s ideas about culture as having indirectly influenced the way much of multiculturalist and anti-racist policy-making has been carried out in the UK.\n\n4. Frantz Fanon - we learned about Fanon in Week 2. Fanon’s influence on anti-colonial and black liberation movements such as Black Power in the US is undeniable.\nAlthough Fanon’s focus was more on the experience of the colonised in the Antilles, Algeria or Africa, his views were seen by many involved in radical black movements in the 1960s and 1970s as describing the situation faced by minorities in the West, especially the United States.\n\n5. In this country, many sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists working on racism are motivated by anti-racist concerns. \nThe Institute of Race Relations has been headed up by Sivanandan since he led a rebellion against the original Institute in the 1970s . He and his team combine a concern with research into the causes and effects of racism with a grounding in the radical anti-racist and anti-colonialist movement. \n\n6. My work on anti-racism was motivated by a concern to find out why different types of anti-racism are so different from each other. I found out that it was to do with the way in which they defined racism!\n
- The majority of the explanations that we use in trying to understand racism were constructed from an anti-racist perspective.\n\nFollowing the Second World War it became important to explain why race and racism were dangerous ideas - as before they had been generally accepted.\n\nThose who took on the task of explaining racism were mainly social scientists, historians, and other scholars as well as educators who cared about bringing an end to racism.\n\nIf we want to understand racism, therefore, we should try to get inside the heads of these anti-racist thinkers.\n\nIt is also important to recognise that their ideas about racism often vary greatly and that they are open to criticism. It is not just because someone is against a ‘bad thing’ like racism that their position is intellectually sound.\n\nAs sociologists, we need to look at anti-racism as rigorously as we look at other social and political phenomena.\n\nSo who were some of these influential anti-racists?\n\nFranz Boas - father of modern anthropology. He worked in the late 19th and early 20th century, dying in 1942. His dislike for racial science - which was the prevalent idea at the time - led him to introduce the concept of cultural relativism which , although problematic, was important because it denied the notion that human beings were naturally divided according to a racial (biological) hierarchy. Rather, Boas argued, each cultural was different but equal.\n\nW.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) - was an African American sociologist and the father of civil rights. His books, The Souls of Black Folk and Dusk of Dawn among many others are extremely influential texts.\n\nDu Bois went through many periods in his long life. In the inter-war years, along with people like Boas, he was involved in cranial measurements - a technique used by racial scientists - in order to disprove the prevalent idea that blacks had smaller brains to whites. \n\nLater in his life he was influential in the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured people and joined the Communist party. He also became a pan-Africanist leading him to emigrate to Ghana towards the end of his life where he died. By this time he had become more radical in his approach to racism.\n\n3. Claude Levi-Strauss - anthropologist and father of structuralism.\nLevi-Strauss was influential in the UNESCO project and the Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice it produced.\nLevi-Strauss wrote Race and History in 1960 which became a key anti-racist text, even taught to children in French schools.\n\nHis ideas shaped the idea, promoted by Unesco, that culture and ethnicity are more important than race for explaining human difference. He proposed that the term racism be replaced by what he saw as the more correct ‘ethnocentrism’. \n\nLevi-Strauss was a cultural relativist. He was opposed to assimilation because he believed that all cultures should be allowed to maintain their uniqueness. He therefore had an important impact on multiculturalist ideas. However, his extreme cultural relativism has been criticised because it implies essentially that all ‘cultures’ should remain unchanged over time. His view does not allow for the overall transformation of societies as a result of immigration. \n\nWe can see Levi-Strauss’s ideas about culture as having indirectly influenced the way much of multiculturalist and anti-racist policy-making has been carried out in the UK.\n\n4. Frantz Fanon - we learned about Fanon in Week 2. Fanon’s influence on anti-colonial and black liberation movements such as Black Power in the US is undeniable.\nAlthough Fanon’s focus was more on the experience of the colonised in the Antilles, Algeria or Africa, his views were seen by many involved in radical black movements in the 1960s and 1970s as describing the situation faced by minorities in the West, especially the United States.\n\n5. In this country, many sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists working on racism are motivated by anti-racist concerns. \nThe Institute of Race Relations has been headed up by Sivanandan since he led a rebellion against the original Institute in the 1970s . He and his team combine a concern with research into the causes and effects of racism with a grounding in the radical anti-racist and anti-colonialist movement. \n\n6. My work on anti-racism was motivated by a concern to find out why different types of anti-racism are so different from each other. I found out that it was to do with the way in which they defined racism!\n
- The majority of the explanations that we use in trying to understand racism were constructed from an anti-racist perspective.\n\nFollowing the Second World War it became important to explain why race and racism were dangerous ideas - as before they had been generally accepted.\n\nThose who took on the task of explaining racism were mainly social scientists, historians, and other scholars as well as educators who cared about bringing an end to racism.\n\nIf we want to understand racism, therefore, we should try to get inside the heads of these anti-racist thinkers.\n\nIt is also important to recognise that their ideas about racism often vary greatly and that they are open to criticism. It is not just because someone is against a ‘bad thing’ like racism that their position is intellectually sound.\n\nAs sociologists, we need to look at anti-racism as rigorously as we look at other social and political phenomena.\n\nSo who were some of these influential anti-racists?\n\nFranz Boas - father of modern anthropology. He worked in the late 19th and early 20th century, dying in 1942. His dislike for racial science - which was the prevalent idea at the time - led him to introduce the concept of cultural relativism which , although problematic, was important because it denied the notion that human beings were naturally divided according to a racial (biological) hierarchy. Rather, Boas argued, each cultural was different but equal.\n\nW.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) - was an African American sociologist and the father of civil rights. His books, The Souls of Black Folk and Dusk of Dawn among many others are extremely influential texts.\n\nDu Bois went through many periods in his long life. In the inter-war years, along with people like Boas, he was involved in cranial measurements - a technique used by racial scientists - in order to disprove the prevalent idea that blacks had smaller brains to whites. \n\nLater in his life he was influential in the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured people and joined the Communist party. He also became a pan-Africanist leading him to emigrate to Ghana towards the end of his life where he died. By this time he had become more radical in his approach to racism.\n\n3. Claude Levi-Strauss - anthropologist and father of structuralism.\nLevi-Strauss was influential in the UNESCO project and the Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice it produced.\nLevi-Strauss wrote Race and History in 1960 which became a key anti-racist text, even taught to children in French schools.\n\nHis ideas shaped the idea, promoted by Unesco, that culture and ethnicity are more important than race for explaining human difference. He proposed that the term racism be replaced by what he saw as the more correct ‘ethnocentrism’. \n\nLevi-Strauss was a cultural relativist. He was opposed to assimilation because he believed that all cultures should be allowed to maintain their uniqueness. He therefore had an important impact on multiculturalist ideas. However, his extreme cultural relativism has been criticised because it implies essentially that all ‘cultures’ should remain unchanged over time. His view does not allow for the overall transformation of societies as a result of immigration. \n\nWe can see Levi-Strauss’s ideas about culture as having indirectly influenced the way much of multiculturalist and anti-racist policy-making has been carried out in the UK.\n\n4. Frantz Fanon - we learned about Fanon in Week 2. Fanon’s influence on anti-colonial and black liberation movements such as Black Power in the US is undeniable.\nAlthough Fanon’s focus was more on the experience of the colonised in the Antilles, Algeria or Africa, his views were seen by many involved in radical black movements in the 1960s and 1970s as describing the situation faced by minorities in the West, especially the United States.\n\n5. In this country, many sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists working on racism are motivated by anti-racist concerns. \nThe Institute of Race Relations has been headed up by Sivanandan since he led a rebellion against the original Institute in the 1970s . He and his team combine a concern with research into the causes and effects of racism with a grounding in the radical anti-racist and anti-colonialist movement. \n\n6. My work on anti-racism was motivated by a concern to find out why different types of anti-racism are so different from each other. I found out that it was to do with the way in which they defined racism!\n
- The majority of the explanations that we use in trying to understand racism were constructed from an anti-racist perspective.\n\nFollowing the Second World War it became important to explain why race and racism were dangerous ideas - as before they had been generally accepted.\n\nThose who took on the task of explaining racism were mainly social scientists, historians, and other scholars as well as educators who cared about bringing an end to racism.\n\nIf we want to understand racism, therefore, we should try to get inside the heads of these anti-racist thinkers.\n\nIt is also important to recognise that their ideas about racism often vary greatly and that they are open to criticism. It is not just because someone is against a ‘bad thing’ like racism that their position is intellectually sound.\n\nAs sociologists, we need to look at anti-racism as rigorously as we look at other social and political phenomena.\n\nSo who were some of these influential anti-racists?\n\nFranz Boas - father of modern anthropology. He worked in the late 19th and early 20th century, dying in 1942. His dislike for racial science - which was the prevalent idea at the time - led him to introduce the concept of cultural relativism which , although problematic, was important because it denied the notion that human beings were naturally divided according to a racial (biological) hierarchy. Rather, Boas argued, each cultural was different but equal.\n\nW.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) - was an African American sociologist and the father of civil rights. His books, The Souls of Black Folk and Dusk of Dawn among many others are extremely influential texts.\n\nDu Bois went through many periods in his long life. In the inter-war years, along with people like Boas, he was involved in cranial measurements - a technique used by racial scientists - in order to disprove the prevalent idea that blacks had smaller brains to whites. \n\nLater in his life he was influential in the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured people and joined the Communist party. He also became a pan-Africanist leading him to emigrate to Ghana towards the end of his life where he died. By this time he had become more radical in his approach to racism.\n\n3. Claude Levi-Strauss - anthropologist and father of structuralism.\nLevi-Strauss was influential in the UNESCO project and the Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice it produced.\nLevi-Strauss wrote Race and History in 1960 which became a key anti-racist text, even taught to children in French schools.\n\nHis ideas shaped the idea, promoted by Unesco, that culture and ethnicity are more important than race for explaining human difference. He proposed that the term racism be replaced by what he saw as the more correct ‘ethnocentrism’. \n\nLevi-Strauss was a cultural relativist. He was opposed to assimilation because he believed that all cultures should be allowed to maintain their uniqueness. He therefore had an important impact on multiculturalist ideas. However, his extreme cultural relativism has been criticised because it implies essentially that all ‘cultures’ should remain unchanged over time. His view does not allow for the overall transformation of societies as a result of immigration. \n\nWe can see Levi-Strauss’s ideas about culture as having indirectly influenced the way much of multiculturalist and anti-racist policy-making has been carried out in the UK.\n\n4. Frantz Fanon - we learned about Fanon in Week 2. Fanon’s influence on anti-colonial and black liberation movements such as Black Power in the US is undeniable.\nAlthough Fanon’s focus was more on the experience of the colonised in the Antilles, Algeria or Africa, his views were seen by many involved in radical black movements in the 1960s and 1970s as describing the situation faced by minorities in the West, especially the United States.\n\n5. In this country, many sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists working on racism are motivated by anti-racist concerns. \nThe Institute of Race Relations has been headed up by Sivanandan since he led a rebellion against the original Institute in the 1970s . He and his team combine a concern with research into the causes and effects of racism with a grounding in the radical anti-racist and anti-colonialist movement. \n\n6. My work on anti-racism was motivated by a concern to find out why different types of anti-racism are so different from each other. I found out that it was to do with the way in which they defined racism!\n
- 1. Anti-racism needs to be understood as both the practice of social movements and as a discourse that explains racism and tries to propose solutions to it.\n\nDiscourses are mobilised by activists to get their point across. Anti-racist discourses are based upon the way in which racism is interpreted. And as we have seen, there are many competing ways of seeing racism. \n\n2. For a social movement to be effective, it could be argued that it needs to speak in one voice and to present a united front. However, because AR is based on so many competing views of racism, it can be seen as being very disunited. AR activists admit this. \n\nSome see the necessity of creating a broad umbrella that can incorporate different approaches to anti-racism. But others believe that it is difficult to find points in common and that the idea of a “broad church” approach to anti-racism is a pipe dream.\n\n3. When I did my research into anti-racism in Europe, I spoke to anti-racist activists in four different European countries - the UK, France, Italy and Ireland.\n\nI took a broad approach to defining what constitutes an anti-racist organisation and included large mainstream organisations like, in this country, the National Assembly Against Racism which is an umbrella organisation, as well as community-based groups, organisations that see themselves as anti-fascist, organisations that fight for migrants’ rights, and organisations that specialise in case work around racial discrimination (often to do with the police).\n\nWhile looking at this diversity of anti-racisms, I noticed that the way in which they saw racism determined whether or not they could work together.\n\nTrying to theorise the disunity of anti-racism, I came up with the idea of a continuum which sees the various AR types as distinguishable according to how they positioned themselves with regards to the state.\n\nTo simplify: \nAt one end of the continuum there are anti-racist groups that tend to rely on the idea that the state in Europe is essentially democratic. Under this view, if all the laws of the country are correctly upheld, they should be sufficient to deal with racism. \n\nSome of the organisations that subscribe to this idea are more concerned with the racism of the far-right. This is because they tend not to see state racism as being as dangerous as the BNP or the NF.\n\nAt the other end of the continuum, there are organisations that believe that racism is essentially a structural problem. Given the historical relationship between racism and the state in Europe, the involvement with colonialism and slavery and - most importantly - the failure to deal properly with this past, such organisations believe that racism in society is brought about because it is deeply embedded in our political culture. \n\nOrganisations that base themselves on this belief tend to be highly influenced by discourses of black liberation and the anti-colonial struggle. \n\nOf course, in reality the majority of anti-racisms tend to lie somewhere in the middle ground of this continuum.\n\nIn order to survive materially and politically, anti-racists often need to make compromises because this is a highly underfunded field and many organisations are constantly threatened with closure. \n\nIn the next part of the lecture, I want to use some classic divides in anti-racism in order to make clear the heterogeneity of anti-racism I am describing.\n\nEssentially, we cannot talk about one anti-racism - either as a discourse or in terms of practices of social movements. We need to talk about plural anti-racisms.\n
- 1. Anti-racism needs to be understood as both the practice of social movements and as a discourse that explains racism and tries to propose solutions to it.\n\nDiscourses are mobilised by activists to get their point across. Anti-racist discourses are based upon the way in which racism is interpreted. And as we have seen, there are many competing ways of seeing racism. \n\n2. For a social movement to be effective, it could be argued that it needs to speak in one voice and to present a united front. However, because AR is based on so many competing views of racism, it can be seen as being very disunited. AR activists admit this. \n\nSome see the necessity of creating a broad umbrella that can incorporate different approaches to anti-racism. But others believe that it is difficult to find points in common and that the idea of a “broad church” approach to anti-racism is a pipe dream.\n\n3. When I did my research into anti-racism in Europe, I spoke to anti-racist activists in four different European countries - the UK, France, Italy and Ireland.\n\nI took a broad approach to defining what constitutes an anti-racist organisation and included large mainstream organisations like, in this country, the National Assembly Against Racism which is an umbrella organisation, as well as community-based groups, organisations that see themselves as anti-fascist, organisations that fight for migrants’ rights, and organisations that specialise in case work around racial discrimination (often to do with the police).\n\nWhile looking at this diversity of anti-racisms, I noticed that the way in which they saw racism determined whether or not they could work together.\n\nTrying to theorise the disunity of anti-racism, I came up with the idea of a continuum which sees the various AR types as distinguishable according to how they positioned themselves with regards to the state.\n\nTo simplify: \nAt one end of the continuum there are anti-racist groups that tend to rely on the idea that the state in Europe is essentially democratic. Under this view, if all the laws of the country are correctly upheld, they should be sufficient to deal with racism. \n\nSome of the organisations that subscribe to this idea are more concerned with the racism of the far-right. This is because they tend not to see state racism as being as dangerous as the BNP or the NF.\n\nAt the other end of the continuum, there are organisations that believe that racism is essentially a structural problem. Given the historical relationship between racism and the state in Europe, the involvement with colonialism and slavery and - most importantly - the failure to deal properly with this past, such organisations believe that racism in society is brought about because it is deeply embedded in our political culture. \n\nOrganisations that base themselves on this belief tend to be highly influenced by discourses of black liberation and the anti-colonial struggle. \n\nOf course, in reality the majority of anti-racisms tend to lie somewhere in the middle ground of this continuum.\n\nIn order to survive materially and politically, anti-racists often need to make compromises because this is a highly underfunded field and many organisations are constantly threatened with closure. \n\nIn the next part of the lecture, I want to use some classic divides in anti-racism in order to make clear the heterogeneity of anti-racism I am describing.\n\nEssentially, we cannot talk about one anti-racism - either as a discourse or in terms of practices of social movements. We need to talk about plural anti-racisms.\n
- 1. Anti-racism needs to be understood as both the practice of social movements and as a discourse that explains racism and tries to propose solutions to it.\n\nDiscourses are mobilised by activists to get their point across. Anti-racist discourses are based upon the way in which racism is interpreted. And as we have seen, there are many competing ways of seeing racism. \n\n2. For a social movement to be effective, it could be argued that it needs to speak in one voice and to present a united front. However, because AR is based on so many competing views of racism, it can be seen as being very disunited. AR activists admit this. \n\nSome see the necessity of creating a broad umbrella that can incorporate different approaches to anti-racism. But others believe that it is difficult to find points in common and that the idea of a “broad church” approach to anti-racism is a pipe dream.\n\n3. When I did my research into anti-racism in Europe, I spoke to anti-racist activists in four different European countries - the UK, France, Italy and Ireland.\n\nI took a broad approach to defining what constitutes an anti-racist organisation and included large mainstream organisations like, in this country, the National Assembly Against Racism which is an umbrella organisation, as well as community-based groups, organisations that see themselves as anti-fascist, organisations that fight for migrants’ rights, and organisations that specialise in case work around racial discrimination (often to do with the police).\n\nWhile looking at this diversity of anti-racisms, I noticed that the way in which they saw racism determined whether or not they could work together.\n\nTrying to theorise the disunity of anti-racism, I came up with the idea of a continuum which sees the various AR types as distinguishable according to how they positioned themselves with regards to the state.\n\nTo simplify: \nAt one end of the continuum there are anti-racist groups that tend to rely on the idea that the state in Europe is essentially democratic. Under this view, if all the laws of the country are correctly upheld, they should be sufficient to deal with racism. \n\nSome of the organisations that subscribe to this idea are more concerned with the racism of the far-right. This is because they tend not to see state racism as being as dangerous as the BNP or the NF.\n\nAt the other end of the continuum, there are organisations that believe that racism is essentially a structural problem. Given the historical relationship between racism and the state in Europe, the involvement with colonialism and slavery and - most importantly - the failure to deal properly with this past, such organisations believe that racism in society is brought about because it is deeply embedded in our political culture. \n\nOrganisations that base themselves on this belief tend to be highly influenced by discourses of black liberation and the anti-colonial struggle. \n\nOf course, in reality the majority of anti-racisms tend to lie somewhere in the middle ground of this continuum.\n\nIn order to survive materially and politically, anti-racists often need to make compromises because this is a highly underfunded field and many organisations are constantly threatened with closure. \n\nIn the next part of the lecture, I want to use some classic divides in anti-racism in order to make clear the heterogeneity of anti-racism I am describing.\n\nEssentially, we cannot talk about one anti-racism - either as a discourse or in terms of practices of social movements. We need to talk about plural anti-racisms.\n
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- There are many disagreements and differences that divide between different anti-racist approaches.\n\nBut two in particular have been, and continue to be, key.\n\nWhat should anti-racism tackle and who should be the main actors of anti-racism? These 2 questions have often been linked.\n\na) We shall firstly at how discourses of anti-racism have sometimes been linked to discourses around national identity in support of the view that real British values are also anti-racist values.\n\nb) This type of view also supports the idea that anti-racism should be for everyone. It should beat the far right at its own game by having a populist message. In particular, this view believes that young people should be the vanguard against racism. \n\n2. The second theme relates to the question of autonomy. \n\n The question of representation is very important in anti-racism.\n Can only those who have experienced racism represent anti-racist groups? Or should everyone be allowed to speak on any matter?\nThese questions are bound up to issues of black and ethnic minority political autonomy.\nAs we shall see, in the early days of anti-racism, well-meaning, often middle class white people tried to speak on behalf of the victims of racism. This still goes on today in many ways.\nThe question of who can speak for who is still central to anti-racist debates.\n\nb) To what extent should anti-racism be completely autonomous from the government?\nShould independent anti-racists cooperate with the state?\nCan state-led anti-racist campaigns or semi-state bodies like the old Commission for Racial Equality act successfully against racism?\n
- There are many disagreements and differences that divide between different anti-racist approaches.\n\nBut two in particular have been, and continue to be, key.\n\nWhat should anti-racism tackle and who should be the main actors of anti-racism? These 2 questions have often been linked.\n\na) We shall firstly at how discourses of anti-racism have sometimes been linked to discourses around national identity in support of the view that real British values are also anti-racist values.\n\nb) This type of view also supports the idea that anti-racism should be for everyone. It should beat the far right at its own game by having a populist message. In particular, this view believes that young people should be the vanguard against racism. \n\n2. The second theme relates to the question of autonomy. \n\n The question of representation is very important in anti-racism.\n Can only those who have experienced racism represent anti-racist groups? Or should everyone be allowed to speak on any matter?\nThese questions are bound up to issues of black and ethnic minority political autonomy.\nAs we shall see, in the early days of anti-racism, well-meaning, often middle class white people tried to speak on behalf of the victims of racism. This still goes on today in many ways.\nThe question of who can speak for who is still central to anti-racist debates.\n\nb) To what extent should anti-racism be completely autonomous from the government?\nShould independent anti-racists cooperate with the state?\nCan state-led anti-racist campaigns or semi-state bodies like the old Commission for Racial Equality act successfully against racism?\n
- There are many disagreements and differences that divide between different anti-racist approaches.\n\nBut two in particular have been, and continue to be, key.\n\nWhat should anti-racism tackle and who should be the main actors of anti-racism? These 2 questions have often been linked.\n\na) We shall firstly at how discourses of anti-racism have sometimes been linked to discourses around national identity in support of the view that real British values are also anti-racist values.\n\nb) This type of view also supports the idea that anti-racism should be for everyone. It should beat the far right at its own game by having a populist message. In particular, this view believes that young people should be the vanguard against racism. \n\n2. The second theme relates to the question of autonomy. \n\n The question of representation is very important in anti-racism.\n Can only those who have experienced racism represent anti-racist groups? Or should everyone be allowed to speak on any matter?\nThese questions are bound up to issues of black and ethnic minority political autonomy.\nAs we shall see, in the early days of anti-racism, well-meaning, often middle class white people tried to speak on behalf of the victims of racism. This still goes on today in many ways.\nThe question of who can speak for who is still central to anti-racist debates.\n\nb) To what extent should anti-racism be completely autonomous from the government?\nShould independent anti-racists cooperate with the state?\nCan state-led anti-racist campaigns or semi-state bodies like the old Commission for Racial Equality act successfully against racism?\n
- There are many disagreements and differences that divide between different anti-racist approaches.\n\nBut two in particular have been, and continue to be, key.\n\nWhat should anti-racism tackle and who should be the main actors of anti-racism? These 2 questions have often been linked.\n\na) We shall firstly at how discourses of anti-racism have sometimes been linked to discourses around national identity in support of the view that real British values are also anti-racist values.\n\nb) This type of view also supports the idea that anti-racism should be for everyone. It should beat the far right at its own game by having a populist message. In particular, this view believes that young people should be the vanguard against racism. \n\n2. The second theme relates to the question of autonomy. \n\n The question of representation is very important in anti-racism.\n Can only those who have experienced racism represent anti-racist groups? Or should everyone be allowed to speak on any matter?\nThese questions are bound up to issues of black and ethnic minority political autonomy.\nAs we shall see, in the early days of anti-racism, well-meaning, often middle class white people tried to speak on behalf of the victims of racism. This still goes on today in many ways.\nThe question of who can speak for who is still central to anti-racist debates.\n\nb) To what extent should anti-racism be completely autonomous from the government?\nShould independent anti-racists cooperate with the state?\nCan state-led anti-racist campaigns or semi-state bodies like the old Commission for Racial Equality act successfully against racism?\n
- There are many disagreements and differences that divide between different anti-racist approaches.\n\nBut two in particular have been, and continue to be, key.\n\nWhat should anti-racism tackle and who should be the main actors of anti-racism? These 2 questions have often been linked.\n\na) We shall firstly at how discourses of anti-racism have sometimes been linked to discourses around national identity in support of the view that real British values are also anti-racist values.\n\nb) This type of view also supports the idea that anti-racism should be for everyone. It should beat the far right at its own game by having a populist message. In particular, this view believes that young people should be the vanguard against racism. \n\n2. The second theme relates to the question of autonomy. \n\n The question of representation is very important in anti-racism.\n Can only those who have experienced racism represent anti-racist groups? Or should everyone be allowed to speak on any matter?\nThese questions are bound up to issues of black and ethnic minority political autonomy.\nAs we shall see, in the early days of anti-racism, well-meaning, often middle class white people tried to speak on behalf of the victims of racism. This still goes on today in many ways.\nThe question of who can speak for who is still central to anti-racist debates.\n\nb) To what extent should anti-racism be completely autonomous from the government?\nShould independent anti-racists cooperate with the state?\nCan state-led anti-racist campaigns or semi-state bodies like the old Commission for Racial Equality act successfully against racism?\n
- There are many disagreements and differences that divide between different anti-racist approaches.\n\nBut two in particular have been, and continue to be, key.\n\nWhat should anti-racism tackle and who should be the main actors of anti-racism? These 2 questions have often been linked.\n\na) We shall firstly at how discourses of anti-racism have sometimes been linked to discourses around national identity in support of the view that real British values are also anti-racist values.\n\nb) This type of view also supports the idea that anti-racism should be for everyone. It should beat the far right at its own game by having a populist message. In particular, this view believes that young people should be the vanguard against racism. \n\n2. The second theme relates to the question of autonomy. \n\n The question of representation is very important in anti-racism.\n Can only those who have experienced racism represent anti-racist groups? Or should everyone be allowed to speak on any matter?\nThese questions are bound up to issues of black and ethnic minority political autonomy.\nAs we shall see, in the early days of anti-racism, well-meaning, often middle class white people tried to speak on behalf of the victims of racism. This still goes on today in many ways.\nThe question of who can speak for who is still central to anti-racist debates.\n\nb) To what extent should anti-racism be completely autonomous from the government?\nShould independent anti-racists cooperate with the state?\nCan state-led anti-racist campaigns or semi-state bodies like the old Commission for Racial Equality act successfully against racism?\n
- Who or what should be the main target of anti-racism is a hotly debated issue.\n\nFor many, there is a divide between anti-racism and, the more narrow, anti-fascism or what is often referred to in this country following the Anti Nazi League, as Anti-Nazism.\n\nWhether the far-right should be the main target of anti-racist activity relates to broader questions about the understanding of racism employed by different groups.\n\nIs “fascism” the main problem, or should the general political culture which makes it possible for extreme right-wing groups to emerged be tackled.\n\nMany anti-fascist groups do not see the two as being mutually exclusive.\n\nBut critics have argued that putting too much emphasis on the far right gives them the attention they are craving and takes the heat off state racism.\n\nIntro to film:\nThe roots of anti-fascism are very strong. They go back to critical moments in 20th century European history, in particular the fight against fascism in Spain during the civil war in the 1930s. \n\nMany British workers joined anarchists and communists from all over the world in the attempt to drive Franco our of Spain. They did not succeed and Franco went on to join Hitler and Mussolini as the three fascists leaders that held Europe in an iron grip in the 30s and 40s.\n\nThe internationalism of the anti-fascist movement is seen by many as strongly anti-racist. Internationalism works towards a world in which individual nations and borders will not be important and when, as Marx and Engels said, “workers of the world would unite”.\n\nThe film Land and Freedom by Ken Loach, about a British man who goes to fight the fascists in Spain describes this period. In the following clip, the singing of The International demonstrates the spirit which many anti-fascists today believe defines their movement.\n\nAnti-fascism is not only about the far-right or racism. It is about the proletarian fight against the “chains of oppression”.\n
- Who or what should be the main target of anti-racism is a hotly debated issue.\n\nFor many, there is a divide between anti-racism and, the more narrow, anti-fascism or what is often referred to in this country following the Anti Nazi League, as Anti-Nazism.\n\nWhether the far-right should be the main target of anti-racist activity relates to broader questions about the understanding of racism employed by different groups.\n\nIs “fascism” the main problem, or should the general political culture which makes it possible for extreme right-wing groups to emerged be tackled.\n\nMany anti-fascist groups do not see the two as being mutually exclusive.\n\nBut critics have argued that putting too much emphasis on the far right gives them the attention they are craving and takes the heat off state racism.\n\nIntro to film:\nThe roots of anti-fascism are very strong. They go back to critical moments in 20th century European history, in particular the fight against fascism in Spain during the civil war in the 1930s. \n\nMany British workers joined anarchists and communists from all over the world in the attempt to drive Franco our of Spain. They did not succeed and Franco went on to join Hitler and Mussolini as the three fascists leaders that held Europe in an iron grip in the 30s and 40s.\n\nThe internationalism of the anti-fascist movement is seen by many as strongly anti-racist. Internationalism works towards a world in which individual nations and borders will not be important and when, as Marx and Engels said, “workers of the world would unite”.\n\nThe film Land and Freedom by Ken Loach, about a British man who goes to fight the fascists in Spain describes this period. In the following clip, the singing of The International demonstrates the spirit which many anti-fascists today believe defines their movement.\n\nAnti-fascism is not only about the far-right or racism. It is about the proletarian fight against the “chains of oppression”.\n
- Who or what should be the main target of anti-racism is a hotly debated issue.\n\nFor many, there is a divide between anti-racism and, the more narrow, anti-fascism or what is often referred to in this country following the Anti Nazi League, as Anti-Nazism.\n\nWhether the far-right should be the main target of anti-racist activity relates to broader questions about the understanding of racism employed by different groups.\n\nIs “fascism” the main problem, or should the general political culture which makes it possible for extreme right-wing groups to emerged be tackled.\n\nMany anti-fascist groups do not see the two as being mutually exclusive.\n\nBut critics have argued that putting too much emphasis on the far right gives them the attention they are craving and takes the heat off state racism.\n\nIntro to film:\nThe roots of anti-fascism are very strong. They go back to critical moments in 20th century European history, in particular the fight against fascism in Spain during the civil war in the 1930s. \n\nMany British workers joined anarchists and communists from all over the world in the attempt to drive Franco our of Spain. They did not succeed and Franco went on to join Hitler and Mussolini as the three fascists leaders that held Europe in an iron grip in the 30s and 40s.\n\nThe internationalism of the anti-fascist movement is seen by many as strongly anti-racist. Internationalism works towards a world in which individual nations and borders will not be important and when, as Marx and Engels said, “workers of the world would unite”.\n\nThe film Land and Freedom by Ken Loach, about a British man who goes to fight the fascists in Spain describes this period. In the following clip, the singing of The International demonstrates the spirit which many anti-fascists today believe defines their movement.\n\nAnti-fascism is not only about the far-right or racism. It is about the proletarian fight against the “chains of oppression”.\n
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- Going back to the tradition of anti-fascism since the 1930s, British anti-racism has been marked by a tendency to equate all racism with the far-right - the NF and the BNP.\n\nGilroy argues that instead of looking at the complexity of racism in Britain - as institutionalised and sometimes very subtle and difficult to discern, the anti-facist approach is reductive.\n\nMoreover, anti-fascism mobilises a sense of national identity in order to make its case.\nIt recalls Britain’s “historic fight against Nazism”, believing this to be what defines Britishness. \nTherefore, the members of the far-right are sham patriots, not worthy of flying the British flag.\n
- [PLAY MOVIE SO SOUND]\nThe ANL was established in 1977 by the Socialist Worker Party, who were also behind its predecessor Rock Against Racism, in response to the rise of the National Front.\nIt disbanded in 1981 but was revived in the mid 1990s in response to the first BNP councillor being elected in Tower Hamlets.\nThe ANL is also behind campaigns such as “Love Music hate Racism” and is involved in Unite Against Fascism.\n\nThe Anti Nazi League is the organisation which in the UK epitomises the mobilisation of national identity in the fight against racism and fascism.\n\nThere are 3 key elements of the ANL’s discourse which explain this:\n\nNever Again - the phrase refers to the Nazi Holocaust. \nSince its early days, the ANL draws a direct link between the treatment of black people and migrants and the Holocaust. They see racism as a teleological process which ultimately leads to the death camps.\n\nWhen I interviewed a representative from the ANL in 2000, she told me that learning about the Holocaust is very important for the movement. Particularly today, the ANL feels, that the BNP and the NF try to hide their admiration for Nazism because it alienates some of their potential voters. But in fact, they are what they call “Hitler admirers”. \n\nThe ANL leader I talked to went on to say:\n“Their politics are the same as Hitler’s were and the National Socialist Nazis in Germany. So I think it’s really important to label them with that because they try and shy away.”\n\nGilroy argues that the association with the Nazis does two things.\nFirstly, it sets the ANL and people who oppose the “nazis” as real British patriots. Whereas the NF and the BNP sully the flag. \nThis is problematic because it potentially creates a divide between white people and others. \nWho can be said to be truly British when symbols like the Union Jack are being evoked? It was the same flag in whose name people were oppressed under the colonial rule of the British empire.\n\nSecondly, if the ANL and its supporters are the true Brits, the so-called Nazis are outsiders. In the 1970s, the ANL produced photos of NF leaders wearing Nazi uniforms. This, for Gilroy, constructs them as a ‘foreign body’. \nThe question is where that leaves racism - is it also something foreign that comes to blight Britain from the outside.\nThis type of logic obviously creates problems for thinking about racism as endemic to the British state and British political culture.\n\n2. Nevertheless, the ANL see references to Britishness, the war and the flag as important tools for mobilising. \n\nThe ANL claims that it rejects factionalism and wants to organise on a broad a base as possible. \nIn order to be successful, it focuses on one issue only - what they call “smashing the Nazis”. Many people, whatever their political beliefs can share this common aim.\n\nIndeed, the ANL believes that its target audience is often the same as the BNP’s. It is just a matter of who gets their first.\nTo this end, the ANL makes a divide between Nazis and nationalists. The BNP call themselves nationalists but they are actually Nazis. Ordinary people who are nationalists have to be made to understand that they have more in common with the ANL than with the BNP.\n As the ANL leader I interviewed told me:\n“Actually being a Nazi isn’t popular in Britain today. So they [the far right] say they are nationalists, they call themselves nationalists. What’s the problem with that? I campaign on the streets against Nazis, not nationalists but they hope to win the white working class who is proud of being British. It’s like the Nazis are going to march next week for St George’s Day. The reason we’re opposing that march is because the National Front have called it and they’re the Nazi party. If any other party had called it and if it was locals marching for St George’s Day, we wouldn’t oppose that because I don’t see those people as Nazis. Then you’re caught calling a lot of the population Nazis.”\n\n3. Finally, the ANL are committed to fighting the “Nazis” physically. This direct action involves trying to stop NF and BNP protests often ending in fights.\nThe infamous Battle of Lewisham of 1977 involved heavy fighting between fascists and anti-fascists. It has gone down in anti-racist history in much the same as Cable Street did as a formative moment.\n\nThe glorification of this type of direct confrontation is central to the ANL’s discourse. But it has been critiqued by black groups in particular.\nAlthough the ANL constructs a discourse itself around being pro-working class, for many other anti-racist organisations this is romantic posturing. The ANL are widely believed to be middle class. They are seen as “parachuting themselves in” for demos and leaving as soon as they are over, leaving the local community to fend for itself both against the far right and against the police who historically have tended to side with the far right against the anti-racists.\n\nOne person who I interviewed from then black organisation The 1990 Trust saw this as a significant problem. He said:\n“Two years ago there was a demonstration in Brixton against the police. A lot of black organisations were involved, very good, very peaceful, very well co-ordinated. The problem is one group – I’m not going to name – came up, a white-led group and started causing trouble, started harassing the police, started fighting the police. This group was a white-led group basically and it ended up tragic. They hijacked the whole thing, the whole demonstration. The police reacted very badly as usual. They reacted. These people ran away immediately. The black community were blamed, the black community were arrested. I was there... I saw it and I thought that’s so disgusting what they do or what they’ve done. They didn’t really care, they didn’t give a shit about these people in the community. They were there for their own political means and gains and that just drove me crazy. I was just very wound up. It’s the community who has to take the backlash not these people who are middle-class, white people living in suburbia. That’s a fact.”\n
- [PLAY MOVIE SO SOUND]\nThe ANL was established in 1977 by the Socialist Worker Party, who were also behind its predecessor Rock Against Racism, in response to the rise of the National Front.\nIt disbanded in 1981 but was revived in the mid 1990s in response to the first BNP councillor being elected in Tower Hamlets.\nThe ANL is also behind campaigns such as “Love Music hate Racism” and is involved in Unite Against Fascism.\n\nThe Anti Nazi League is the organisation which in the UK epitomises the mobilisation of national identity in the fight against racism and fascism.\n\nThere are 3 key elements of the ANL’s discourse which explain this:\n\nNever Again - the phrase refers to the Nazi Holocaust. \nSince its early days, the ANL draws a direct link between the treatment of black people and migrants and the Holocaust. They see racism as a teleological process which ultimately leads to the death camps.\n\nWhen I interviewed a representative from the ANL in 2000, she told me that learning about the Holocaust is very important for the movement. Particularly today, the ANL feels, that the BNP and the NF try to hide their admiration for Nazism because it alienates some of their potential voters. But in fact, they are what they call “Hitler admirers”. \n\nThe ANL leader I talked to went on to say:\n“Their politics are the same as Hitler’s were and the National Socialist Nazis in Germany. So I think it’s really important to label them with that because they try and shy away.”\n\nGilroy argues that the association with the Nazis does two things.\nFirstly, it sets the ANL and people who oppose the “nazis” as real British patriots. Whereas the NF and the BNP sully the flag. \nThis is problematic because it potentially creates a divide between white people and others. \nWho can be said to be truly British when symbols like the Union Jack are being evoked? It was the same flag in whose name people were oppressed under the colonial rule of the British empire.\n\nSecondly, if the ANL and its supporters are the true Brits, the so-called Nazis are outsiders. In the 1970s, the ANL produced photos of NF leaders wearing Nazi uniforms. This, for Gilroy, constructs them as a ‘foreign body’. \nThe question is where that leaves racism - is it also something foreign that comes to blight Britain from the outside.\nThis type of logic obviously creates problems for thinking about racism as endemic to the British state and British political culture.\n\n2. Nevertheless, the ANL see references to Britishness, the war and the flag as important tools for mobilising. \n\nThe ANL claims that it rejects factionalism and wants to organise on a broad a base as possible. \nIn order to be successful, it focuses on one issue only - what they call “smashing the Nazis”. Many people, whatever their political beliefs can share this common aim.\n\nIndeed, the ANL believes that its target audience is often the same as the BNP’s. It is just a matter of who gets their first.\nTo this end, the ANL makes a divide between Nazis and nationalists. The BNP call themselves nationalists but they are actually Nazis. Ordinary people who are nationalists have to be made to understand that they have more in common with the ANL than with the BNP.\n As the ANL leader I interviewed told me:\n“Actually being a Nazi isn’t popular in Britain today. So they [the far right] say they are nationalists, they call themselves nationalists. What’s the problem with that? I campaign on the streets against Nazis, not nationalists but they hope to win the white working class who is proud of being British. It’s like the Nazis are going to march next week for St George’s Day. The reason we’re opposing that march is because the National Front have called it and they’re the Nazi party. If any other party had called it and if it was locals marching for St George’s Day, we wouldn’t oppose that because I don’t see those people as Nazis. Then you’re caught calling a lot of the population Nazis.”\n\n3. Finally, the ANL are committed to fighting the “Nazis” physically. This direct action involves trying to stop NF and BNP protests often ending in fights.\nThe infamous Battle of Lewisham of 1977 involved heavy fighting between fascists and anti-fascists. It has gone down in anti-racist history in much the same as Cable Street did as a formative moment.\n\nThe glorification of this type of direct confrontation is central to the ANL’s discourse. But it has been critiqued by black groups in particular.\nAlthough the ANL constructs a discourse itself around being pro-working class, for many other anti-racist organisations this is romantic posturing. The ANL are widely believed to be middle class. They are seen as “parachuting themselves in” for demos and leaving as soon as they are over, leaving the local community to fend for itself both against the far right and against the police who historically have tended to side with the far right against the anti-racists.\n\nOne person who I interviewed from then black organisation The 1990 Trust saw this as a significant problem. He said:\n“Two years ago there was a demonstration in Brixton against the police. A lot of black organisations were involved, very good, very peaceful, very well co-ordinated. The problem is one group – I’m not going to name – came up, a white-led group and started causing trouble, started harassing the police, started fighting the police. This group was a white-led group basically and it ended up tragic. They hijacked the whole thing, the whole demonstration. The police reacted very badly as usual. They reacted. These people ran away immediately. The black community were blamed, the black community were arrested. I was there... I saw it and I thought that’s so disgusting what they do or what they’ve done. They didn’t really care, they didn’t give a shit about these people in the community. They were there for their own political means and gains and that just drove me crazy. I was just very wound up. It’s the community who has to take the backlash not these people who are middle-class, white people living in suburbia. That’s a fact.”\n
- [PLAY MOVIE SO SOUND]\nThe ANL was established in 1977 by the Socialist Worker Party, who were also behind its predecessor Rock Against Racism, in response to the rise of the National Front.\nIt disbanded in 1981 but was revived in the mid 1990s in response to the first BNP councillor being elected in Tower Hamlets.\nThe ANL is also behind campaigns such as “Love Music hate Racism” and is involved in Unite Against Fascism.\n\nThe Anti Nazi League is the organisation which in the UK epitomises the mobilisation of national identity in the fight against racism and fascism.\n\nThere are 3 key elements of the ANL’s discourse which explain this:\n\nNever Again - the phrase refers to the Nazi Holocaust. \nSince its early days, the ANL draws a direct link between the treatment of black people and migrants and the Holocaust. They see racism as a teleological process which ultimately leads to the death camps.\n\nWhen I interviewed a representative from the ANL in 2000, she told me that learning about the Holocaust is very important for the movement. Particularly today, the ANL feels, that the BNP and the NF try to hide their admiration for Nazism because it alienates some of their potential voters. But in fact, they are what they call “Hitler admirers”. \n\nThe ANL leader I talked to went on to say:\n“Their politics are the same as Hitler’s were and the National Socialist Nazis in Germany. So I think it’s really important to label them with that because they try and shy away.”\n\nGilroy argues that the association with the Nazis does two things.\nFirstly, it sets the ANL and people who oppose the “nazis” as real British patriots. Whereas the NF and the BNP sully the flag. \nThis is problematic because it potentially creates a divide between white people and others. \nWho can be said to be truly British when symbols like the Union Jack are being evoked? It was the same flag in whose name people were oppressed under the colonial rule of the British empire.\n\nSecondly, if the ANL and its supporters are the true Brits, the so-called Nazis are outsiders. In the 1970s, the ANL produced photos of NF leaders wearing Nazi uniforms. This, for Gilroy, constructs them as a ‘foreign body’. \nThe question is where that leaves racism - is it also something foreign that comes to blight Britain from the outside.\nThis type of logic obviously creates problems for thinking about racism as endemic to the British state and British political culture.\n\n2. Nevertheless, the ANL see references to Britishness, the war and the flag as important tools for mobilising. \n\nThe ANL claims that it rejects factionalism and wants to organise on a broad a base as possible. \nIn order to be successful, it focuses on one issue only - what they call “smashing the Nazis”. Many people, whatever their political beliefs can share this common aim.\n\nIndeed, the ANL believes that its target audience is often the same as the BNP’s. It is just a matter of who gets their first.\nTo this end, the ANL makes a divide between Nazis and nationalists. The BNP call themselves nationalists but they are actually Nazis. Ordinary people who are nationalists have to be made to understand that they have more in common with the ANL than with the BNP.\n As the ANL leader I interviewed told me:\n“Actually being a Nazi isn’t popular in Britain today. So they [the far right] say they are nationalists, they call themselves nationalists. What’s the problem with that? I campaign on the streets against Nazis, not nationalists but they hope to win the white working class who is proud of being British. It’s like the Nazis are going to march next week for St George’s Day. The reason we’re opposing that march is because the National Front have called it and they’re the Nazi party. If any other party had called it and if it was locals marching for St George’s Day, we wouldn’t oppose that because I don’t see those people as Nazis. Then you’re caught calling a lot of the population Nazis.”\n\n3. Finally, the ANL are committed to fighting the “Nazis” physically. This direct action involves trying to stop NF and BNP protests often ending in fights.\nThe infamous Battle of Lewisham of 1977 involved heavy fighting between fascists and anti-fascists. It has gone down in anti-racist history in much the same as Cable Street did as a formative moment.\n\nThe glorification of this type of direct confrontation is central to the ANL’s discourse. But it has been critiqued by black groups in particular.\nAlthough the ANL constructs a discourse itself around being pro-working class, for many other anti-racist organisations this is romantic posturing. The ANL are widely believed to be middle class. They are seen as “parachuting themselves in” for demos and leaving as soon as they are over, leaving the local community to fend for itself both against the far right and against the police who historically have tended to side with the far right against the anti-racists.\n\nOne person who I interviewed from then black organisation The 1990 Trust saw this as a significant problem. He said:\n“Two years ago there was a demonstration in Brixton against the police. A lot of black organisations were involved, very good, very peaceful, very well co-ordinated. The problem is one group – I’m not going to name – came up, a white-led group and started causing trouble, started harassing the police, started fighting the police. This group was a white-led group basically and it ended up tragic. They hijacked the whole thing, the whole demonstration. The police reacted very badly as usual. They reacted. These people ran away immediately. The black community were blamed, the black community were arrested. I was there... I saw it and I thought that’s so disgusting what they do or what they’ve done. They didn’t really care, they didn’t give a shit about these people in the community. They were there for their own political means and gains and that just drove me crazy. I was just very wound up. It’s the community who has to take the backlash not these people who are middle-class, white people living in suburbia. That’s a fact.”\n
- [PLAY MOVIE SO SOUND]\nThe ANL was established in 1977 by the Socialist Worker Party, who were also behind its predecessor Rock Against Racism, in response to the rise of the National Front.\nIt disbanded in 1981 but was revived in the mid 1990s in response to the first BNP councillor being elected in Tower Hamlets.\nThe ANL is also behind campaigns such as “Love Music hate Racism” and is involved in Unite Against Fascism.\n\nThe Anti Nazi League is the organisation which in the UK epitomises the mobilisation of national identity in the fight against racism and fascism.\n\nThere are 3 key elements of the ANL’s discourse which explain this:\n\nNever Again - the phrase refers to the Nazi Holocaust. \nSince its early days, the ANL draws a direct link between the treatment of black people and migrants and the Holocaust. They see racism as a teleological process which ultimately leads to the death camps.\n\nWhen I interviewed a representative from the ANL in 2000, she told me that learning about the Holocaust is very important for the movement. Particularly today, the ANL feels, that the BNP and the NF try to hide their admiration for Nazism because it alienates some of their potential voters. But in fact, they are what they call “Hitler admirers”. \n\nThe ANL leader I talked to went on to say:\n“Their politics are the same as Hitler’s were and the National Socialist Nazis in Germany. So I think it’s really important to label them with that because they try and shy away.”\n\nGilroy argues that the association with the Nazis does two things.\nFirstly, it sets the ANL and people who oppose the “nazis” as real British patriots. Whereas the NF and the BNP sully the flag. \nThis is problematic because it potentially creates a divide between white people and others. \nWho can be said to be truly British when symbols like the Union Jack are being evoked? It was the same flag in whose name people were oppressed under the colonial rule of the British empire.\n\nSecondly, if the ANL and its supporters are the true Brits, the so-called Nazis are outsiders. In the 1970s, the ANL produced photos of NF leaders wearing Nazi uniforms. This, for Gilroy, constructs them as a ‘foreign body’. \nThe question is where that leaves racism - is it also something foreign that comes to blight Britain from the outside.\nThis type of logic obviously creates problems for thinking about racism as endemic to the British state and British political culture.\n\n2. Nevertheless, the ANL see references to Britishness, the war and the flag as important tools for mobilising. \n\nThe ANL claims that it rejects factionalism and wants to organise on a broad a base as possible. \nIn order to be successful, it focuses on one issue only - what they call “smashing the Nazis”. Many people, whatever their political beliefs can share this common aim.\n\nIndeed, the ANL believes that its target audience is often the same as the BNP’s. It is just a matter of who gets their first.\nTo this end, the ANL makes a divide between Nazis and nationalists. The BNP call themselves nationalists but they are actually Nazis. Ordinary people who are nationalists have to be made to understand that they have more in common with the ANL than with the BNP.\n As the ANL leader I interviewed told me:\n“Actually being a Nazi isn’t popular in Britain today. So they [the far right] say they are nationalists, they call themselves nationalists. What’s the problem with that? I campaign on the streets against Nazis, not nationalists but they hope to win the white working class who is proud of being British. It’s like the Nazis are going to march next week for St George’s Day. The reason we’re opposing that march is because the National Front have called it and they’re the Nazi party. If any other party had called it and if it was locals marching for St George’s Day, we wouldn’t oppose that because I don’t see those people as Nazis. Then you’re caught calling a lot of the population Nazis.”\n\n3. Finally, the ANL are committed to fighting the “Nazis” physically. This direct action involves trying to stop NF and BNP protests often ending in fights.\nThe infamous Battle of Lewisham of 1977 involved heavy fighting between fascists and anti-fascists. It has gone down in anti-racist history in much the same as Cable Street did as a formative moment.\n\nThe glorification of this type of direct confrontation is central to the ANL’s discourse. But it has been critiqued by black groups in particular.\nAlthough the ANL constructs a discourse itself around being pro-working class, for many other anti-racist organisations this is romantic posturing. The ANL are widely believed to be middle class. They are seen as “parachuting themselves in” for demos and leaving as soon as they are over, leaving the local community to fend for itself both against the far right and against the police who historically have tended to side with the far right against the anti-racists.\n\nOne person who I interviewed from then black organisation The 1990 Trust saw this as a significant problem. He said:\n“Two years ago there was a demonstration in Brixton against the police. A lot of black organisations were involved, very good, very peaceful, very well co-ordinated. The problem is one group – I’m not going to name – came up, a white-led group and started causing trouble, started harassing the police, started fighting the police. This group was a white-led group basically and it ended up tragic. They hijacked the whole thing, the whole demonstration. The police reacted very badly as usual. They reacted. These people ran away immediately. The black community were blamed, the black community were arrested. I was there... I saw it and I thought that’s so disgusting what they do or what they’ve done. They didn’t really care, they didn’t give a shit about these people in the community. They were there for their own political means and gains and that just drove me crazy. I was just very wound up. It’s the community who has to take the backlash not these people who are middle-class, white people living in suburbia. That’s a fact.”\n
- Although RAR was started by the SWP, the same people who started the ANL, Paul Gilroy sees this as a more positive form of anti-racism. \n\nWhile RAR focused on mobilising young people through the powerful medium of music, the ANL wanted to broaden its message. Gilroy sees this as a problem. Because the ANL encouraged the establishment of committees such as “Teachers against the Nazis” and even “Vegetarians against the Nazis”, which attached anti-fascism to other concerns, what Gilroy calls “the fragile unity” around “opposition to nationalism, fascist violence and the police” which RAR had created was shattered.\n\nRock Against Racism made the link between politics and music. Music was the one domain where it was possible to be violently critical of the government and where racial unity was much more common than in real life.\n\nPunk especially was central. It grew at the same time as RAR and provided a language of opposition and anarchy. The RAR magazine, Temporary Hoarding, would be full of statements such as:\n\n“We want rebel music, street music. Music that breaks down people’s fear of one another. Crisis music. Now music. Music that knows who the real enemy is. Rock against racism. Love music hate racism.”\n\nThe language evokes the centrality of rebellion encapsulated by reggae, of the street where the majority of battles between black people and the police, and fascists and anti-fascists took place. It was based on creating a unified youth that stuck two fingers up to authority and wouldn’t accept that Britain was only for white people. It was based on the belief that Britain had been transformed for the better by immigration, not least in the realm of music!\n\nFor Gilroy, RAR recognised institutional racism - especially the racism of the police. It saw all young people involved in sub-cultures as potential police targets and therefore advocated that - to use the slogan - “Black and white, unite and fight”.\n\nRAR was revived as “Love music, hate racism” in 2002. The website pronounces “Our music is living testimony to the fact that cultures can and do mix. It unites us and gives us strength, and offers a vibrant celebration of our multicultural and multiracial society. Racism seeks only to divide and weaken us… We use the energy of our music scene to celebrate diversity”. \n\nThe language used is less radical and oppositional than that of the 1970s. Is this a reflection of how both politics and youth culture have changed, or because racism is seen to be less of a problem?\n
- Another example of how youth are targeted by the anti-racist message.\n\nWhat do you think the difference between this and RAR is?\n
- First instances of AR in Britain involved white people acting on behalf of immigrants in organisations such as CARD and its successor CCARD.\n\nOrganisations like this didn’t last long because, apart from involving a range of people with differing political beliefs, they also tended towards a paternalism towards immigrants who were involved.\n\nPaternalism and tokenism are two problems that have beset the AR movement everywhere.\n\nPaternalism assumes that the racialised are ignorant of politics, need help organising and require that white people speak on their behalf.\n\nTokenism evolves out of paternalism, recognising the need for AR to be fronted by those who experience racism. But racialised people are often tokens, asked to speak at meetings, while real decisions are taken by those in power.\n\nThe 1970s and the mobilisation of black people and ethnic minorities saw the end of much of this type of solidarity-based AR in Britain.\n\nHowever, some argue that the ANL is an example of this as it fails to take into account the demands of those who face racism “on the ground”. This opens the debate as to how much AR has to be represented by those who face racism themselves or whether the test of a good AR movement is how popular it is. \n\nThere is certainly a feeling that in order to involve as many people as possible, AR cannot be seen to be a blacks only affair. \n\nOn the other hand, others argue that due to the damage created by paternalistic and tokenistic politics in the past, it is sometimes necessary for the racialised to organise internally before opening up the movement to wider participation.\n\nMany of these issues have been resolved with the creation of umbrella organisations like the National Assembly Against Racism and Unite Against Fascism.\n\nHowever, with the arrival of new migrants and asylum seekers over the last tend years, there has been a return to the type of solidarity organisations originally seen in the 60s.\n\nWhile many migrnats are active politically, it is true that the lack of certainty surrounding their presence in the UK (often illegally) leaves them open to attack. The atmosphere is so unfavourably tipped against asylum seekers in particular that many in the AR movement feel that it is incumbent upon them to speak on behalf of migrants. This may be particularly important when migranst are in detention meaning that they cannot speak for themselves.\n\nHowever, campaigners from the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns feels that it is necessary for migrants to speak out. In an interview with a representative from NCADC in 2000, I was told:\n“It’s important for asylum seekers to get involved because it’s very empowering… And I know it’s very difficult because people are very scared… it’s very difficult for them but it’s very important. “\n
- In Week 5, we spoke about how multicultural policies were brought in by Labour-run local councils on the 1980s.\n\nThe councils, especially the Greater London Council, were concerned with the fact that Margaret Thatcher had been elected on a right-wing, anti-Labour backlash that also had a healthy dose of anti-immigration sentiment thrown in.\n\nThe anti-racism of the local councils was a direct response to the Scarman report into the Brixton riots of 1981 which, as we saw last week, failed to recognise the existence of institutional racism.\n\nBut the local councils were also concerned that unless action was taken to redress institutional racism, then street violence would get worse. The concern was to get black protest under control as well as coping with the effects of racist discrimination.\n\nFurthermore, black people were beginning to become involved in mainstream politics and there were calls for black caucuses to be set up within the Labour Party. \nIt was felt that the needs of black people had to be addressed if their votes were not going to be lost. \n\nThe AR initiatives taken by the local councils were are least in part based on ensuring that the traditional allegiance of black people to Labour was maintained.\n\nWhile it is important to accept that the local councils were sincere in their commitment to anti-racism, Paul Gilroy claims that their efforts led directly to weakening the autonomous black-led anti-racisms of the 1970s.\n\nThe councils’ focus was on getting the anti-racist agenda to fit their own. And because their approach was extremely bureaucratic, that left little room for spontaneous and autonomous anti-racisms.\n\nMunicipal AR, as Gilroy calls it, was based on the politics of the council debating chamber, on rules and procedures, budgets, campaigns, training programmes and policy-making. \n\nThis led to the professionalisation of the AR field and the recruitment of officers responsible for implementing the AR policies decided upon by the council. \n\nInevitably, this had an effect on voluntary AR groups who lost members who left to become “racde relations professionals”.\n\n2. One of the principal activities of Municipal AR was the provision of AR training, known as Racism Awareness Training or RAT.\n\nThe model was extended and used in companies and other organisations.\n\nRAT has been heavily criticised. Let’s look at 2 of the main criticisms:\n\n RAT is seen as assuming that all organisations are run like local councils and the same models of anti-racist training were seen as being able to work everywhere.\nThis does not take into account the different needs of individual organisations and the people wirking in them.\n\nb) Secondly, RAT is based on an understanding of racism as power+prejudice. \nIn other words, powerful people act out their prejudices against people who have no power.\n\nThis divides the whole population into either victims of perpetrators.\n\nAs one of the people I interviewed said, RAT was all about getting white people to admit to having racist feelings and to feel remorse for them, often ending in them breaking into tears.\n\nAs Gilroy points out, this view of society being divided into victims and perpetrators leaves no room for anti-racism. He asks, weher would anti-racism come from if this was the case.\n\nObviously, racism is much more complex than that. But we can see how RAT-type approaches have created the idea - prevalent today - that we cannot talk about race because of the so-called ‘PC brigade’ who police our thoughts. This is clearly not conducive to creating alliances between people to tackle common problems many of which affect a lot of people in the society, be they racialised or not.\n\n3. Municipal anti-racism put a lot of funding into creating public awareness campaigns in the form of billboards and leaflets.\n\nGilroy has analysed the content of these materials. \n\nFor example, the slogan “let’s kick racism out of town” (used in the example on the slide) was used on all AR campaign materials by the GLC in the 1980s.\nGilroy argues that this is problematic because the idea of kicking racism out once again implies that racism is an “autonomous ideological force” that can be gotten rid of, rather than something inherent to the society and its political structures.\n\nIn general, anti-racist campaigns run by local or central governments, or by supranational organisations such as the European Union, the Council of Europe or FIFA have tended to focus on catchy slogans. Things such as:\n\nAll Different, All Equal\nStand Up, Speak Up\nOr For diversity, against discrimination.\n\nSuch slogans assume that everyone understands the terms of reference and shares the same basic approach. \n\nAs Gilroy says, rather than actually convincing people not to be racist, the posters and leaflets speak more to the people concerned.\n\nThe GLC posters spoke to black people convincing them to support the council’s policies. \n\nWhen white people were addressed it was to make them feel guilty for racism. \n\nNowhere is the state or local government seen as part of the problem, only as the solution.\n
- In Week 5, we spoke about how multicultural policies were brought in by Labour-run local councils on the 1980s.\n\nThe councils, especially the Greater London Council, were concerned with the fact that Margaret Thatcher had been elected on a right-wing, anti-Labour backlash that also had a healthy dose of anti-immigration sentiment thrown in.\n\nThe anti-racism of the local councils was a direct response to the Scarman report into the Brixton riots of 1981 which, as we saw last week, failed to recognise the existence of institutional racism.\n\nBut the local councils were also concerned that unless action was taken to redress institutional racism, then street violence would get worse. The concern was to get black protest under control as well as coping with the effects of racist discrimination.\n\nFurthermore, black people were beginning to become involved in mainstream politics and there were calls for black caucuses to be set up within the Labour Party. \nIt was felt that the needs of black people had to be addressed if their votes were not going to be lost. \n\nThe AR initiatives taken by the local councils were are least in part based on ensuring that the traditional allegiance of black people to Labour was maintained.\n\nWhile it is important to accept that the local councils were sincere in their commitment to anti-racism, Paul Gilroy claims that their efforts led directly to weakening the autonomous black-led anti-racisms of the 1970s.\n\nThe councils’ focus was on getting the anti-racist agenda to fit their own. And because their approach was extremely bureaucratic, that left little room for spontaneous and autonomous anti-racisms.\n\nMunicipal AR, as Gilroy calls it, was based on the politics of the council debating chamber, on rules and procedures, budgets, campaigns, training programmes and policy-making. \n\nThis led to the professionalisation of the AR field and the recruitment of officers responsible for implementing the AR policies decided upon by the council. \n\nInevitably, this had an effect on voluntary AR groups who lost members who left to become “racde relations professionals”.\n\n2. One of the principal activities of Municipal AR was the provision of AR training, known as Racism Awareness Training or RAT.\n\nThe model was extended and used in companies and other organisations.\n\nRAT has been heavily criticised. Let’s look at 2 of the main criticisms:\n\n RAT is seen as assuming that all organisations are run like local councils and the same models of anti-racist training were seen as being able to work everywhere.\nThis does not take into account the different needs of individual organisations and the people wirking in them.\n\nb) Secondly, RAT is based on an understanding of racism as power+prejudice. \nIn other words, powerful people act out their prejudices against people who have no power.\n\nThis divides the whole population into either victims of perpetrators.\n\nAs one of the people I interviewed said, RAT was all about getting white people to admit to having racist feelings and to feel remorse for them, often ending in them breaking into tears.\n\nAs Gilroy points out, this view of society being divided into victims and perpetrators leaves no room for anti-racism. He asks, weher would anti-racism come from if this was the case.\n\nObviously, racism is much more complex than that. But we can see how RAT-type approaches have created the idea - prevalent today - that we cannot talk about race because of the so-called ‘PC brigade’ who police our thoughts. This is clearly not conducive to creating alliances between people to tackle common problems many of which affect a lot of people in the society, be they racialised or not.\n\n3. Municipal anti-racism put a lot of funding into creating public awareness campaigns in the form of billboards and leaflets.\n\nGilroy has analysed the content of these materials. \n\nFor example, the slogan “let’s kick racism out of town” (used in the example on the slide) was used on all AR campaign materials by the GLC in the 1980s.\nGilroy argues that this is problematic because the idea of kicking racism out once again implies that racism is an “autonomous ideological force” that can be gotten rid of, rather than something inherent to the society and its political structures.\n\nIn general, anti-racist campaigns run by local or central governments, or by supranational organisations such as the European Union, the Council of Europe or FIFA have tended to focus on catchy slogans. Things such as:\n\nAll Different, All Equal\nStand Up, Speak Up\nOr For diversity, against discrimination.\n\nSuch slogans assume that everyone understands the terms of reference and shares the same basic approach. \n\nAs Gilroy says, rather than actually convincing people not to be racist, the posters and leaflets speak more to the people concerned.\n\nThe GLC posters spoke to black people convincing them to support the council’s policies. \n\nWhen white people were addressed it was to make them feel guilty for racism. \n\nNowhere is the state or local government seen as part of the problem, only as the solution.\n
- More recent campaigns turn the focus away from institutional racism and onto cultural diversity.\n\nThis is part of the overall logic we looked at in Week 5 that sees multiculturalism as problematic.\n\nThere has been a move away from treating racism as a specific problem towards collapsing it into a wider focus on discrimination of all kinds.\n\nHence the CRE has been renamed the Equality and Human Rights Commission. \n\nTrevor Phillipps’s statement in this slide reveals the problem with this type of approach. Different marginalised groups are now being pitted against each other. The diversity agenda tends to assume that racism has been overblown. For example, Trevor Phillips said in January that Britain is now the least racist country in Europe.\n\nThis allows for funding and other resources to be taken away from tackling racism and for more and more anti-racist groups to lose their support.\n\nClearly what is being deemed racist (e.g. criminalisation of those suspected of radicalism, for example) has shifted and racism, far from becoming less of a factor, has become more acceptable in some spheres.\n
- The AR movement has been faced with a new set of challenges since the late 1990s and the government’s new tougher policies on asylum.\n\nThe AR agenda could no longer be so concentrated on the settled black and ethnic minority population. Instead it had to find ways of coping with the crisis being faced by asylum seekers and migrants, demonised by the press and increasingly associated with criminality - facing imprisonment in asylum detention centres and potential deportation.\n\nThere are many different types of organisation working on issues of migrants’s rights and there are many differences between them.\n\nSome do not come from a traditional AR background - they are mainly groups around churches, charities and advocacy groups who focus on giving legal advice to people in detention or facing deportation.\n\nOther groups such as NCADC focus on deportation and serve to organise run by migrants themselves.\n\nA third group, widen the issue and focus on the question of borders. These more radical groups see the question of asylum rights as being linked to wider concerns about human rights and civil liberties.\n\nGroups such as the No Borders Network and No One is Illegal call for direct action against “Fortress Europe” - or the tightening of Europe’s borders against undesirable outsiders.\n\nMuch of this work is transnational. Groups organise No Border Camps attended by activists from different countries. They are also active within the European and World Social Forums.\n\nThere is a criticism that migrants themselves are not as involved in these types of groups for a variety of reasons:\nFor example, the direct action is often risky for migrants who do not have legal status.\nMigrants are often unable to travel to take part in international events and may therefore be excluded from the process. \n\nIn response, migrants have established their own groups, sometimes in cooperation with trade unions and other organisations and activist groups.\n\nThe issue of migrant workers rights, for example, has been taken up by the TUC and other trade unions.\n\nTo end, refugee rights are the focus of a campaigning group here at Sussex.\n