PERMANENT RACISM: RACE AND CLASS IN POSTRACIAL BRITAIN

Hosted by the Centre of Identities and Social Justice

Racism has no place in our society, or so we are told. In fact, racism has a crucial place: what Critical Race Theorists describe as a stabilising role. This does not mean that ‘nothing has changed’ but that struggles for racial justice are contained in a cycle of progress and regression. It is not that antiracist action is pointless but that positional victories – increased representation, gains in educational outcomes – do not mean that race as an axis of conflict ceases to exist. Until the 1980s there was still a stubborn fraction in Britain clinging to the fancy that communities of colour could literally be erased en masse from British society. Today those dreams of closure have been replaced by discursive erasure and by a facile state postracialism whose features are colourblind policy approaches, strident antagonism to antiracism and the elimination of black and brown working class identities. This session explores rearticulations of race and class in ‘postracial’ Britain and what they might mean for those working in fields such as education. Its analysis returns to the roots of Critical Race Theory, particularly the work of Derrick Bell and his concepts of ‘permanent racism’ and ‘racial realism’.

About the speaker

Paul Warmington is a Visiting Professor at the Research Centre for Global Learning (GLEA), Coventry University and a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Identities and Social Justice, Goldsmiths, University of London. Paul is an internationally recognised scholar, whose work is rooted in Black Atlantic thought and focuses on education and social justice, and on Black intellectual movements. He began his career in further education in the late 1980s and has worked in higher education for over twenty years, at the Universities of Nottingham, Birmingham and Warwick. His work has been covered in The Guardian, Times Education Supplement and The Voice. He recently contributed to BBC1’s landmark documentary Subnormal, on the placing of Black children in ESN schools during the 1960s and 70s. His publications include the co-edited four-volume collection, Critical Race Theory in Education: Major Themes (Routledge, 2018). His new book Permanent Racism: Race, Class and the Myth of Postracial Britain will be published by Policy Press in January 2024.

This event will be held in Deptford Town Hall , room 102, Goldsmiths University of London.

For those who are unable to attend in person, we will provide an online viewing link. This will be sent out closer to the event date, to all registered attendees.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Goldsmiths, University of London, Deptford Town Hall, Room102, New Cross Road, London, United Kingdom