Alana Lentin - Why Race Still Matters

Alana Lentin

polity

Copyright Alana Lentin 2020

The right of Alana Lentin to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2020 by Polity Press

Polity Press

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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

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Medford, MA 02155, USA

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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3570-5

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3571-2 (pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lentin, Alana, author.

Title: Why race still matters / Alana Lentin.

Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: We cant claim the end of racism until we actually understand what race is really about-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019052404 (print) | LCCN 2019052405 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509535705 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509535712 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509535729 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Race. | Racism.

Classification: LCC HT1521 .L4126 2020 (print) | LCC HT1521 (ebook) | DDC 305.8--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052404

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052405

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Why Race Still Matters is what you get when you have a trusting editor. My editor at Polity Books, Jonathan Skerrett, approached me at first asking whether I would be interested in contributing a proposal for a book on borders for their Debating Race series. I wrote back telling him that, while I was delighted to have been asked, I did not feel competent enough to write on this subject, but that I could propose something else. Although the book did not find a home in Debating Race, Polity agreed to publish it nonetheless, and Jonathan supported me as the book vastly expanded from its original agreed-upon length.

There are many people who helped directly and indirectly in the writing of this book. Some of them I have never met. So, although it may seem strange to do so, I want to start by thanking my fellow antiracist scrollers and 280-character formulators on Twitter. Twitter at times is enraging and it is certainly also a drain on my time. But it is undeniable that, were it not for Twitter, this book would not have taken shape in quite the way it has, especially because sometimes I find living in Australia to be an isolating experience. Twitter helps me feel closer to an international community of race scholars. Knowing what I was writing on, Twitter friends sent me countless examples of the not racism I explore in . I want to thank Michael Richmond in particular, who, as well as publishing an article I wrote on Frozen Racism in the Occupied Times, contributed many examples and much food for thought.

The Internet has been important for research in other ways. In particular, I am an avid listener of podcasts, and have learned a lot from Surviving Society, Always Already, The Funambulist, and About Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge, on which I was delighted to have been asked to appear in 2018.

I am very grateful to have been invited to speak about aspects of the book in several places, occasions that have helped me to hone it through discussion with colleagues. I first addressed the topic of not racism during a conference in Paris organized by the Global Race project in June 2017, to which I was invited by Patrick Simon and Sarah Mazouz. I was lucky to have been invited to visit the University of Amsterdam in late 2018 as a guest of the anthropologist Amade Mcharek, who runs the Race Face ID research project on race and forensics. During my stay there, I was invited by Sarah Bracke and Paul Mepschen to give a talk about the themes I cover in . In February 2018, I was delighted to have been a guest of the inimitable Dottie Morris, Associate Vice President for Institutional Equity and Diversity at Keene State University in New Hampshire, to give a public lecture. Dottie had read about me in Reni Eddo-Lodges beautiful book Why Im No Longer Talking About Race to White People. Most recently, I attended the Mobilizing Blackness symposium organized by Damani Partridge and Mihir Sharma at the University of Michigan, which was one of the most nourishing scholarly gatherings I have had the pleasure of attending, with a group of almost all Black women scholars. I enjoyed energizing and thought-provoking conversations with Pacific studies scholar Katerina Teaiwa, the African-American anthropologist of whiteness Marian Swanzy-Parker, the Afro-German Black theorist Vanessa Thompson, the Black Finnish scholar of race in the Nordic countries Jasmine Linnea, and Charisse Burden-Stelly, whose brilliant work in the tradition of Black radicalism and communism was a discovery.

I am an enormous fan of libraries, and this book was mainly written in them. I wrote happily in the Sydney University law library during the summer vacation of January 2018, the State Library of New South Wales, and the beautiful new library in Marrickville, where I ran to complete revisions on the manuscript after it opened in late 2019.

I was very lucky to have been invited to the Varuna Writers House in the Blue Mountains above Sydney. I wrote my third chapter there in a difficult week straight after the horror of the Christchurch terrorist attack, and I was grateful for the silence.

This book, as with all my work, is indebted to the endless practical help and intellectual support I receive from my mother, the fearless antiracist, anti-colonialist, and race scholar Ronit Lentin. Thanks always for your honed commentary and your sharp eyes that find all my strange linguistic formulations and grammatical errors.

The intellectual insight of Gavan Titley, with whom I have been working since 2003, is invaluable. Gavans own Polity book, Is Free Speech Racist?, is Why Race Still Matters sister. It is fair to say that there is a rare word I write that doesnt land in Gavans inbox, and he is always there with both incisive critique and endless encouragement, both scholarly and political. Stefanie Boulila, whose own book on Race in Postracial Europe had just been published, also provided me with precious feedback on during his visit to Sydney. The brilliant Critical Muslim Studies scholar Yassir Morsi, whose Radical Skin, Moderate Masks is a must-read, is my go-to person for puzzling over race in Australia.