Donaldo Macedo - Globalization of Racism

THE GLOBALIZATION OF RACISM

Series in Critical Narrative

Edited by Donaldo Macedo

University of Massachusetts Boston

Now in print

The Hegemony of English

by Donaldo Macedo, Bessie Dendrinos, and Panayota Gounari (2003)

Letters from Lexington: Reflections on Propaganda

New Updated Edition
by Noam Chomsky (2004)

Pedogogy of Indignation

by Paulo Freire (2004)

Howard Zinn on Democratic Education

by Howard Zinn with Donaldo Macedo (2005)

How Children Learn: Getting Beyond the Deficit Myth

by Terese Fayden (2005)

The Globalization of Racism

edited by Donaldo Macedo and Panayota Gounari (2005)

Forthcoming in the series

Science, Truth, and Ideology

by Stanley Aronowitz (2006)

Pedogogy of Dreaming

by Paulo Freire (2006)

Dear Paulo: Letters from Teachers

by Sonia Nieto (2006)

THE GLOBALIZATION OF RACISM

EDITED BY

DONALDO MACEDO

AND

PANAYOTA GOUNARI

To those willing to rupture from the racist form of charitable racism and who are reborn with the conviction to struggle to recapture our endangered humanity.

First published 2006 by Paradigm Publishers

Published 2016 by Routledge

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Macedo, Donaldo P. (Donaldo Pereira), 1950-

The globalization of racism / edited by Donaldo Macedo and Panayota Gounari.

p. cm. (Series in critical narrative)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-59451-076-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 1-59451-077-6 (paperback : alk. paper)

1. Racism. 2. Xenophobia. 3. Globalization. I. Gounari, Panayota. II. Title. III. Series.

HT1521.M225 2005

305.8dc22

2005016133

Designed and Typeset by Straight Creek Bookmakers.

ISBN 13 : 978-1-59451-076-2 (hbk)

ISBN 13 : 978-1-59451-077-9 (pbk)

CONTENTS

Donaldo Macedo and Panayota Gounari

Zygmunt Bauman

Edward Said

David Theo Goldberg

Henry A. Giroux

Loc Wacquant

Kathleen Christison and Bill Christison

Anja Weiss

Carmel Borg and Peter Mayo

Anna Aluffi Pentini and Walter Lorenz

Peter Gstettner

Georgios Tsiakalos

Franz Hamburger

Ramn Flecha, Lena de Botton, Iaki Santa Cruz, and Julio Vargas Clavera

Joo Menelau Paraskeva

Donaldo Macedo and Panayota Gounari

Through the process of dehistoricizing race and, by implication, racism, the dominant ideology gives rise to a fertile terrain that confuses the meaning of race and enables conservatives as well as some liberal scholars to claim the end of racism. By dominant ideology we refer to the organizing principles that generate, shape, and sustain white supremacy designed to exclude other human beings by virtue of their race, language, culture, and ethnicity so they can be exploited. In the United States, for example, writers such as Dinesh DSouza who falsely claim the end of racism, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, are handsomely rewarded. This evidence ranges from the growing number of racial incidents on college campuses to the burning of synagogues and black churches to the proliferation of racist radio talk shows, whose hosts advocate killing Muslims in the name of patriotism.

The proposition that we have achieved the end of racism attempts to close down any space in which to question racism and the structures that produce and sustain it. In addition, this false proposition is intended to block all forms of interrogation concerning our understanding of race and racism while impeding clear analyses of these categories. The closing-down of the field of interpretation for racism has the consequence of dehistoricizing the term and its discourses and material practices. Through this dehistoricizing, racism is often disarticulated from politics and the ensuing political projects that crystallize subjectivities, agency and democratization. Individuals who embrace a dehistoricization process in their treatment of racism fail to recognize that racism is always historically specific and that it manifests itself differently in terms of geographical, cultural, ideological and material location, as accurately demonstrated by Loc Wacquants analysis of racism in the United States in

Gilroy correctly observes that historicality is a modern notion in that it presupposes a politics of time: making connections between ontology, nationality and theories of racial difference. It is associated with not only the idea of authenticity and the national principle but also, the elevation of race to a determining position in theories of history, especially those that pronounce on war and conflict, naturalizing them in the convenient idea of specifically race-based imperial conflict.2 Since historicality plays a fundamental role in the construction of the reality of race in the first place, we must look at the ways in which racism has and is currently manifested. Through a historical framework, it becomes much easier to adhere to David Theo Goldbergs notion that if race is a conception, then racism is a condition; or more precisely, where race is a set of conceptions, racisms are sets of conditions, and conditions are never realized outside of history.3 It is through history that we can more accurately identify the structures that shape and promote the dominant feature of racist expression, which is, according to Goldberg, exclusion.4 Hence racisms invariably involve promoting exclusions; consequently, any rigorous analysis must view racisms as phenomena of exclusion articulated on different levels and loci that either complement or clash with each other, constructing an arena where the diverse geographic, material, ideological and discursive elements coexist and are open to interpretation and analysis. Again, Goldbergs insights are illuminating: racisms assume their particular characters, they are exacerbated, and they have different entailments and ramifications in relation to specific considerations of class constitution, gender, national identity, region and political structure.5 By dehistoricizing the spaces that racism has occupied and is still occupying both imaginatively and materially, we are forced to embrace a depoliticized notion of race while remaining trapped in a field in which political interaction has been banished. The end of racism inaugurates a depoliticized space devoid of debate over meanings and institutionsa space where entailments and ramifications are simply terminated so as not to awaken dangerous memories or provoke uncomfortable discussions. That is why the topic of racism is usually labeled controversial, a characterization that discourages debate or discussion. Meanwhile, racial antagonisms remain present in shaping and reproducing the racialized discourses and practices.