The slides of a keynote lecture given by Alana Lentin at the Berlin Jewish Museum on November 12 2015

1. A L A N A L E N T I N
“Post-Migrant Society?!”: Controversies on
Racism,
Minorities and Pluralization
!
Berlin, November 12 2015
D I S R U P T I N G P O S T R A C I A L C E RTA I N T Y
A S A N A N T I R A C I S T U R G E N C Y

4. Mainstream antiracist logic

5. – I N T R O D U C T I O N , A L A N A L E N T I N ,
R A C I S M & A N T I - R A C I S M I N E U R O P E , 2 0 0 4 .
“Historicising anti-racism’s own definition of racism entails
recognising the very different relationships that are constructed
between ‘race’ and state within anti-racist discourse.”

6. – I N T E R V I E W W I T H S O S R A C I S M E I N A L A N A L E N T I N ,
R A C I S M & A N T I - R A C I S M I N E U R O P E , 2 0 0 4 .
“…because we knew that to convince French people tempted by the
racist vote for the Front national that there were solutions to poverty,
to the violence in the neighbourhoods and that there were human
solutions that would lead to better living conditions for everyone.
And in fact, it was simply the application of the Republic that could
stop the process of ghettoisation in the neighbourhoods.”

7. “But Gilroy is not simply interested in a critique of
race for its own sake; his ambition is to evacuate this
troublesome term from the site of social analysis
and cultural formation, and his goals are to make
what he considers to be unjustifiable categories
such as race irrelevant and to supplant them with a
more inclusive economy of identity.”
S I M O N G I K A N D I , ’ R A C E &
C O S M O P O L I TA N I S M , 2 0 0 2 .

8. B L A C K M A L E I N C A R C E R AT I O N & C O L L E G E AT T E N D A N C E C O M PA R E D I N T E R N AT I O N A L LY & T O W O M E N
T H E H U F F I N G T O N P O S T, F E B R U A RY 2 0 1 5

9. – A L A N A L E N T I N , ‘ E U R O P E & T H E S I L E N C E A B O U T R A C E ’ , 2 0 0 8 .
“The silence about race in Europe allows European states to declare
themselves non-racist, or even anti-racist, while at the same time
continuing to imply an inherent European superiority which
determines both international relationships and with those seen as ‘in
but not of Europe’ within its domestic spheres.”

10. 1.
Do
we
need
to
question
the
term
‘racism’
as
much
as
we
do
‘race’?
2.
Not
mentioning
race,
means
being
potentially
complicit
with
racial
logic
and
power
in
the
present.

11. 1.
Explain
race
and
racism
and
the
relationship
between
them.
2.
Point
to
the
inconsistency
of
naming
some
phenomena
‘racist’
while
refusing
to
talk
about
race
in
relation
to
others.

14. T H E S C E N E A F T E R A N I S R A E L I S O L D I E R K I L L E D A J E W I S H M A N B E L I E V I N G H I M T O B E PA L E S T I N I A N , O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5 .

15. The modern race project has been successful for two reasons:
1. It has entered into commonsense by being made appear natural.
2. It has been made synonymous with genetics, separate to culture.

16. – W. E . B . D U B O I S , ‘ T H E C O N C E P T O F R A C E ’ , 1 9 4 0
“But the physical bond is least and the badge of colour relatively
unimportant save as a badge; the real essence of this kinship is its
social heritage of slavery; the discrimination and insult; and this
heritage binds together not simply the children of Africa, but extends
through yellow Asia and into the South Seas. It is this unity that draws
me to Africa…”

17. E L I M I N AT I N G R A C E O B S C U R E S
I T S T R A C E .

18. – A N N L A U R A S T O L E R , ‘ T H E C O L O N I A L A D M I N I S T R AT I O N O F B O D I E S A N D
S PA C E ’ , A R C H I P E L A G O P O D C A S T, 2 0 1 4
“Biology is a, not minor, but it’s only a small part of how race has
been defined. We’ve assumed that early racisms, the real racism, the
hard racism is biological racism and now we’ve moved to a new
racism, which is a cultural racism. This is a totally erroneous notion of
how race has developed as a category. From the very get go […] it
has always been about […] the cultural competencies that were
displayed or not displayed.”

19. – B A R N O R H E S S E , ‘ R A C I S M ’ S A LT E R I T Y ’ , 2 0 1 4
“[T]he idea of the Second World War as a ‘race war’ suggests the
racism concept was a western hegemonic response to the colonial-
racial violations of different white populations in Europe.”

20. – S I M O N G I K A N D I , ‘ R A C E A N D C O S M O P O L I TA N I S M ' , 2 0 0 2
“From Bartholome de Las Casas to Hannah Arendt, the western
discourse on freedom and emancipation has been haunted by the
figure of the Other, whose demands for freedom are incompatible
with the idea of Europe.”

21. M E M O R I A L T O T H E V I C T I M S O F T H E ‘ S H A R K I S L A N D ’ G E R M A N C O N C E N T R A T I O N C A M P S , N A M I B I A

22. Policing the Macedonian border
Riot police, French banlieues
Protesting Aboriginal deaths in custody, Australia

25. – N I C O L A S H U G U E N I N , FA C E B O O K P O S T
“‘You speak of “white race” and religion, linking one to the other.
Let’s leave aside the fact that the “white race” does not exist and
that no one has spoken of it since the last theorists of National-
Socialism were hanged at Nuremberg. But, associating a religion with
a skin colour has to be taken to task! Albanians are white and
Muslim, Desmond Tutu is black and Christian. The most highly
populated Muslim country is Indonesia, whose population is…
yellow. Ah, it’s complicated, isn’t it?”

26. Facebook posts congratulating Huguenin on his open letter to Morano

27. Ericka Bareigts addresses the French National Assembly

28. French PM Manuel Valls: ‘We do not have the vocation of hosting all the wretched of the earth.’

29. The ‘Jungle’, Calais.

31. Protest against ban on Muslim students wearing long skirts at Belgian schools

33. R A C I S M I S F R O Z E N
&
M O T I L E

35. – ‘ “ R A C I S M E A N T I B L A N C ” : L E T E X T E D U M R A P “ P R É O C C U PA N T ” , ’ C O L L E C T I V E
T E X T
“How can the idea of ‘anti-white racism’ not be seen as having
emerged from a political debate in France bent on the inversion of
responsibility? The ‘victim’ is no longer the immigrant or the
descendent of immigrants but the white person, an inversion that
could be put in another way; if there is growing hostility to
immigration, it is the immigrants’ fault.”

36. School pupils draw for Charlie Hebdo

42. Letter from Abyan, Somali asylum seeker raped on Nauru
Australian Minister for Immigration

43. – B R A D C H I L C O T T, W E L C O M E T O A U S T R A L I A , J U N E 2 0 1 5
“Unless we neutralise the issue of people arriving by boat, then we’ll
never be able to move towards bringing many more refugees to
Australia safely, and looking after [them] with dignity and
compassion.”

44. – A N G E L A M I T R O P O U L O S , X B O R D E R O P E R AT I O N A L M AT T E R S , 2 0 1 4
“Australia has a long been a laboratory for the invention and export
of policies around the world that have contributed to the same
dynamic elsewhere — as with the export of ‘offshore’ internment
camps, electoral tactics that demonise asylum seekers,
subcontracting mechanisms, and so on.”

45. The Guardian, 23 October 2015

46. – T I M S O U T P H O M A S S A N E , ’ W H Y T H E R A C I A L D I S C R I M I N AT I O N A C T I S A S
I M P O R TA N T A S E V E R ’ , 3 1 O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5
!
!
“Australia remains triumphantly multicultural. It is simply who we
are.”

49. The detention system, your business. Neither borders nor prisons