RACE AND RACISM

Associate Professor Loshini Naidoo

5. Analysing racism: theoretical
approaches
a. Post-colonial theory

b. Critical race theory (CRT)

c. Whiteness studies

d. Orientalism

e. Embodiment
a. Post-colonial theory
• A theoretical approach closely linked to political activism

• Examines the effects of colonialism on both the coloniser and

the colonised.

• Franz Fanon talks about the internalisation of the racial

hierarchy imposed by the coloniser on the colonised.

• He describes this as ‘an inferiority complex…created by the

death and burial of its local cultural originality’ (Fanon 1967,
Black Skin, White Masks, Pluto Press, p. 18).
b. Critical race theory
• Intersection of race, class, and gender
• Experience of race is relational
• Experience of race is contextual
• Investigates race privilege
• In (post-)colonial contexts, includes acknowledgement of
Indigenous sovereignties.
• Racialisation: the term used to indicate that there is an
ongoing process of association whereby ‘certain groups of
people, ideas and spaces become associated with ‘race’ at
different historical and political moments.’ See ACRAWSA: The
Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association,
http://www.acrawsa.org.au/about/
c. Whiteness studies
• An examination of ‘whiteness’ as the ‘unseen category’ – the
standard from which everything else deviates.
• Runs the risk of ignoring class, gender, ethnic, and so on
differences within those groups who are considered ‘white’.
• Like other examples of racialisation, ‘whiteness’ changes over
time

• Damian Riggs 2004, ‘We don’t talk about race anymore’:

power, privilege and critical whiteness studies’, Borderlands
3:2, http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol3no2_2004/
riggs_intro.htm
d. Orientalism
• Edward Said writes:
‘Orientalism [is] a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based
on the Orient's special place in European Western experience. The
Orient...has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting
image, idea, personality, experience.’
(Said 2003 (1978), Orientalism, London: Penguin, pp. 1-2)
• Orientalism is a discourse
• The figure of the ‘other’ is a tool used to define a population –
to delineate “us” and “them”.
• The ‘other’ is, therefore, an essential part of ‘our’ existence as
a group.
e. Embodiment
• Racism is based on visual codes that categorise people according
to physical characteristics
• We embody social categories (including ‘race’) through our:
• Physical appearance
• Behaviour
• Voice/language
• Clothing
• Linda Alcoff writes about visible identities: no-one can escape
the social effects of their embodied experience (Alcoff 2006, Visible
Identities: Race, Gender and the Self, Oxford)
• George Yancy analyses embodied experience through an
interaction between himself (an African-American man) and a
white woman in an elevator (Yancy 2008, ‘Elevators, social spaces and
racism: a philosophical analysis’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 34:8 pp. 843-876)
6. Ethnicity
• Ethnicity is commonly used but often confusing:
• It is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘race’.
• Ethnicity refers to the cultural, religious, traditional practices of a
group of people and is usually tied to blood descent and to a
particular geographical area.
• Ethnic identities are, like racial categories, contextual and
relational.
• Ethnic identities can also be exclusionary and violent.

• Ethnicity refers to ‘groups which consider themselves, and are

regarded by others, as being culturally distinctive’ (Eriksen 2002,
Ethnicity and Nationalism 2nd Edition, London: Pluto, p. 4)
7. Nationalism
• Nationalism is a particular type of group identity that very
clearly rests on the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’.
• The ‘nation’ is imagined (see Benedict Anderson 1991, Imagined
Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso)
• The ‘nation’ has a border
• The ‘nation’ is ‘ours’; ‘we’ possess it as well as being members
(citizens) of it.

• The ‘other’ is perceived as a ‘threat to the nation’.

• This ‘threat’ can enter through porous borders, therefore

nationalism proposes that borders be strengthened.
8. Citizenship
• Along with nationalism, citizenship is a method of group
identification.

• What is racist about citizenship?

• Difference between jus soli (right of the soil) and jus sanguinis
(right of blood)
• In everyday interactions and dealings with the authorities, who is
most often asked to prove their citizenship status?
• What happens when you don’t have the ‘right’ kind of
documentation?
Post-Colonialism and 21st Century
Education
• Education should function as an agency of cultural
transmission as well as change;

• Education needs to reflect the dynamic process of nation-

building for example societies today include people of many
cultures with high linguistic and cultural diversity

• This presents challenges to schools

Role of Schools
• Schools can play a significant role in mediating the relationship
between particular cultures and the nation-state

• Under colonialism, cultural diversity was submerged

• A post colonial approach would identify the common values

within diverse traditions and integrate these with modern
content and skills
Culture
• There will be mutual respect for cultural differences and
acceptance of global standards for human rights.

• Another consideration for educators who try to relate school

programs to perceived national needs is knowing exactly what
is meant by ‘national development.’
Colonialism
• Colonialism led to :
• economic inequality,
• Social stratification,
• cultural and intellectual servitude, devaluation of traditional
culture, and
• curricula that were irrelevant to the real needs of society
Post-Colonial Education
• preservation of cultural heritage, social justice, human dignity,
political equality and inter -cultural education.
• building national consciousness and unity; nurturing correct
values for the survival of each individual and of society; and
training citizens for understanding the world.
• reduction of rural-urban school inequality and improvement
of gender equity in access to education.
• Community education programs
• illiteracy rate -adopt a free universal basic education
• sharing of experiences, and group learning are emphasised
• universal education, with equal opportunity for all-
compulsory education
Post-Colonial Education (2)
• focus on greater participation, critical thinking, problem-
solving, and non-authoritarian teaching methods

• Localising curricula to meet local and national needs first

• Cultivation of oral and written fluency in local languages is

important in building self-esteem, preserving culture, and
advancing the literary output and identity of peoples.
Post-Colonial Education (3)
• Curriculum change should involve teachers at every stage of
decision-making
• Curriculum needs to be diversified to be relevant for the great
variety of social contexts found in each country
• A school serving people-centred development should provide
a foundation of knowledge that improves every aspect of rural
and urban life
• Schools also need to build the capacity for economic growth,
improvement of living standards and constructive political life
that benefits all people.
Whiteness Theory and Education
• educators need to problematize and interrogate white
dominance and privilege as it relates to schools, curriculum,
and their attitudes and practices

• Counter-stories would be a vehicle to invite traditionally

silenced voices and ways of knowing into the classroom

• If those of us who are the most privileged listen differently,

understanding different perspectives of whiteness may
develop new understandings and responsiveness
Racial socilaization
• We must be aware of our own racial socialization and how it
influences the perceptions we have of the educability of the
students we teach

• Critical self-awareness will enable us to move past

stereotypical expectations and work towards transforming
attitudes and raising daily consciousness and practice.

• Critical whiteness theory is not an indictment of individuals so

much as an indictment of an inequitable, oppressive system
Whiteness Pedagogy
• demonstrate for white students how whiteness shifts to
include or exclude groups according to the social, economic,
and political forces of the moment

• teachers can use local history as powerful object lessons of

how racial formation functions e.g. residential segregation
Bankstown, Redfern, Macquarie Fields, etc
White Double Consciousness
• Develop white double consciousness as teachers ask white
students to acknowledge the role whiteness has played in
oppression while simultaneously holding up antiracist models

• Critical whiteness pedagogy asks teachers to make themselves

part of that pedagogical commitment, and continue to be
accessible to white students during a challenging learning
experience.
CRT and Education
• CRT can be used to begin the dialogue about the possibilities
for schools to engage in the transformation of society by
putting forth the question: “Can schools help end racial,
gender, and ethnic subordination?”
CRT Pedagogy
• focus on “curriculum, instruction, assessment, school funding,
and desegregation as exemplars of the relationship that can
exist between CRT and education

• A major concern of a CRT analysis of education would be to

look at the failure of the educational system in Australia to
properly educate the culturally and racially subordinated
students.
CRT and Schools
• In CRT, the reflections and life stories of people of colour are
utilized as a way in which to build theories about the nature of
race and racism in Australia.

• CRT is a framework to facilitate examination of schools,

curriculum and teacher attitudes and practices.
CRT and Performativity
• standardized testing is problematic from a CRT perspective

• tests do not measure what students know and can do rather

they are more likely to legitimize the deficiencies of the
‘other’. The testing process makes it easier to stereotype,
produces racial oppression and discriminatory outcomes