TY - JOUR

T1 - The promise of political blackness?

T2 - contesting blackness, challenging whiteness and the silencing of racism

AU - Abbas, Madeline Sophie

PY - 2020/2/1

Y1 - 2020/2/1

N2 - This article reviews three books that examine black discourses and perspectives on whiteness and delineate the negative impacts of structural, institutional and interpersonal racism on the life chances and inclusion of people of colour within the national imaginary through both epistemic and material violences. The books explore practices of silencing which surround racism, facilitated by post-racial and colour blind frames which deny people of colour’s lived experiences of racism: Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race; Hirsch’s Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging and Andrews’ Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century. The review focuses on the British context. It explores the politics of place and the journeys undertaken by those marked as racially Other to belong and the recuperative potential of a form of intersectional politics as a means of understanding and navigating how we might overcome divisions between differentially marginalised groups to challenge the system of racism premised on white privilege and dominance more effectively. It concludes with arguing that a politics of discomfort is required to dislodge white privilege from its seat of comfort.

AB - This article reviews three books that examine black discourses and perspectives on whiteness and delineate the negative impacts of structural, institutional and interpersonal racism on the life chances and inclusion of people of colour within the national imaginary through both epistemic and material violences. The books explore practices of silencing which surround racism, facilitated by post-racial and colour blind frames which deny people of colour’s lived experiences of racism: Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race; Hirsch’s Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging and Andrews’ Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century. The review focuses on the British context. It explores the politics of place and the journeys undertaken by those marked as racially Other to belong and the recuperative potential of a form of intersectional politics as a means of understanding and navigating how we might overcome divisions between differentially marginalised groups to challenge the system of racism premised on white privilege and dominance more effectively. It concludes with arguing that a politics of discomfort is required to dislodge white privilege from its seat of comfort.

KW - Black

KW - intersectionality

KW - post-racial

KW - racism

KW - whiteness

U2 - 10.1177/1468796819834046

DO - 10.1177/1468796819834046

M3 - Journal article

VL - 20

SP - 202

EP - 222

JO - Ethnicities

JF - Ethnicities

SN - 1468-7968

IS - 1

ER -