Understanding the Politics of Multiculturalism

Abstract

As I suggested in my introduction, the role anti-racism plays in shaping the politics of race is frequently underestimated, if not neglected entirely. This has arguably got quite a lot to do with the status of antiracism as a critical discourse: to recognize racist practices we will invariably make an implicit distinction between what is and is not racist. As such, the anti-racist position will tend to automatically construct a clear distinction between itself and what it identifies as racist practice. The diagnosis of racism, in other words, will be made on the basis of anti-racism’s own anti-racist credentials, which accordingly does not permit any ambiguities or contradictions in the status of racism itself. The conceptual purity of this basic critical manoeuvre is clearly accentuated by the ethical claim that anti-racism invariably makes, for the diagnosis of racism is never simply a matter of abstract categorization, but is always invested with a degree of moral force. While this ethical claim is a powerful and important component of antiracist practice, it accentuates anti-racism’s tendency to make a neat distinction between ‘the racists’ and ‘the antiracists’. This distinction, I want to suggest, does not readily allow us to recognize or understand practices that take place between or beyond its limits. In practical terms, this means that prevailing discourses of anti-racism are ill-equipped to understand precisely what is at stake in the contemporary politics of race.