By Rowena Arshad, University of Edinburgh
This post is based on a talk from a co-sponsored RACE.ED and CRITIQUE Author-Meets-Critic event held on Professor Nasar Meer’s book, The Cruel Optimism of Racial Justice, held 2 November 2022. It was originally posted on the RACE.ED website and is reposted here with permission.
This blog captures some of the thoughts that struck me when I read Nasar Meer’s latest book – The Cruel Optimism of Racial Justice. The book is a tour de force of concepts relating to the historical and its impact on the contemporary. Meer gives us useful hooks to make sense of what’s happening in relation to race, racism, racial justice in global times of fracture, discontent and growing inequalities. Meer suggests that this is all happening against a backdrop of liberal scholarship related to matters of ‘race’ and racism and he names it as scholarship which assumes an ‘innocence of itself’. I intend to return to this point later in the blog as for me, this assumed innocence is more of a stumbling block to racial justice and progress than the vicious and corrosives efforts of the right or far right.
Is there a tipping point before we pivot collectively and decisively for racial justice?
Let’s start with the title itself, which suggests that despite the knowledge of likely failure, we persevere with the racial justice project. Having been engaged in anti-racist work for over 30 years, it is a scenario I am familiar with, the two steps forward, one step back dance routine.
I am left wondering whether there will be a tipping point (or indeed tipping points) that need to happen for us to be able to move from that slow dance to one that is far more energetic and forward pacing. This is a point that many have pondered about over years and spikes exist which propels progress such as the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the subsequent MacPherson report in the UK and the galvanising of the Black Lives Matter social movement particularly after the murder of George Floyd. If such a tipping point or points exist that what are the factors that can lead us to that?
Derrick Bell, civil rights activist and credited for giving us Critical Race Theory (CRT) poses the concept of ‘interest convergence’ as being such a factor. Bell suggested that racial justice (or more precisely, the interests of Black people) would only be accommodated when these converge with the interests of White people. An example of this might be the take up of race equality or even anti-racist policies by universities in the UK because it does not make financial sense for a university interested in attracting diverse students from across the world to be seen as racist or not acting against racism. You could argue that the interests of Black and students of colour to study in an environment free of racism converged with the financial and moral interest of the institution. This of course is a simplistic example. However, the interest convergence proposition has been contested and is seen as problematic as that proposition places those who are on the receiving end of racism hostage to the interests of White people.
Nevertheless, in the spirit of optimism, I do wonder if there are tipping and convergence points? Here is a personal example and I wonder how many find this familiar. My grandsons are of mixed heritage (brown and white) and I have seen their white father become more aware of issues of racism as my grandsons encounter casual racism in the playpark, in school and even within his family. My grandsons’ father has had to find ways to speak up and challenge racism. So we can hope, that as families become more mixed, that more people will start moving from an ‘ally’ position to taking ownership to speak up and to act against all forms of racism.
Another factor might be when we move from a theoretical understanding of racism to one that is felt with humility and humanity. Meer cites the challenge that Charles W Mills, US civil rights activist and philosopher poses that we need to find a way to overcome the ‘intellectual chasm’ between ‘a struggle for justice’ and intellectual ‘discussions of justice’ (Meer, p2). This is an important point, as liberal scholarship (or more precisely White liberal scholarship) which I referred to at the start of this blog is largely located within the realms of intellectual discussions rather than lived experience. This is why the work of racial justice needs to be guided by lived experience if we are to ensure meaningful progress. The constant challenging of the validity of lived experience is a ruse to progress.
Memory holes and racial time
In Chapter 2 of the book, Meer brings to our attention the phrases ‘memory holes’ and ‘racial time’. Memory is interesting as we can be selective in what we remember and thus what we understand. In reading that chapter, I reflect on the differences of views relating to the renaming of buildings, the tearing down of statues and the whole decolonising of the curriculum initiative. I am reminded of the words of Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe’s that ‘until lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.’ I would suggest that those who object to the decolonial project are possibly caught in memory holes.
Haitian scholar Michel-Rolph Trouillot wrote that ‘any historical narrative is a particular bundle of silences’ (1995). He argued that what is forgotten or silenced must be considered in discussions of the different access to the production of history that different groups have. It is not just bad luck, poor access to the publishing world that the so called ‘truth’ of certain histories come to the fore and others are silenced. History is manufactured and the powerful have a greater say in what is manufactured and given the stamp of ‘official history’.
Yet those who are questioning history are being accused of wishing to rewrite history (what sacrilege!). Rather, might it not be more thoughtful, mature and educative, to view those who are questioning history, as wishing history to take ownership of itself. The objective is to seek a version of history that has an understanding of its relationship to colonialism. Meer citing post-colonial academic Couze Venn ( Meer, p40) talks about Western modernity being still rooted in ethnocentric anchorage and that European modernity continues to set the chronometer of progress. Meer gives us the concept of ‘racial time’ (Meer, p38) and suggests that it is important to examine history within a decolonial lens and then to consider the consequences of that history to modern times. This would enable us to reframe (reimagine) modern narratives with that understanding in mind. Dismantling dominant narratives requires us to unpack that ethnocentric anchorage so that we can better take ownership of the causes and impact of current racial inequalities (e.g. the disproportionate impact of structural inequalities on poorer and minoritized communities – such as during COVID and Meer dedicates an entire chapter of his book to discussing structural inequalities during COVID-19).
Meer spends a large part of Chapter 2 discussing the concept of nationhood suggesting that those who wish to reimagine nationhood tend to be those who have been ‘politically disenfranchised and who are materially dispossessed’. (Meer, p30). He asks the reader to critically consider in the project of shaping nationhood, to distinguish between what is imagined and what is fabricated. He cautions us not to conflate those concepts. Limited wordage on this blog prevents me from examining these thoughts in meaningful depth but I am left wondering again how memory holes play a part in which civic emotions are manipulated and how fabrication is used as part of imagining or reimagining when we consider issues of nation, nationality, boundaries and who is defined as ‘us’ or indeed who is perceived as ‘them’.
Liberal scholarship, assumed ignorance and obstructions to change
One of the areas that Meer highlights is the tariff many Black and people of colour pay for simply not being White. Drawing from Gabriel Apata’s article, ‘I can’t breathe’, written after the murder of George Floyd, Meer quotes Apata’s view that white people are generally ‘ free from the damaging effects of racism and bigotry..and of constantly having to negotiate the tortuous and winding contours of daily discriminatory practices. …. Believing that everyone breathes the same clean air of freedom and privilege.’ (p18)
To break patterns of injustice, we need to disrupt what we know and to recalibrate. It is difficult to engage in a complete somersault of identity, position and privilege but a willingness to do so would assist the journey of racial justice. In my field of education, some teachers and policy makers are embarking on this journey. The Building Racial Literacy (BRL) programme, funded by the Scottish Government and supported by all local authorities in Scotland is an example of this. The ultimate goal of BRL is to make every youth educator and children’s worker in Scotland racially literate, effective at dealing with racism and confident in leading anti-racism.
The blocks and barriers that have come from those who I would classify as allies and fellow social justice advocates are hardest to address. These are individuals who speak the language of social justice, who would challenge injustices due to class, capitalism, patriarchy but when it comes to issues of racism, find it difficult and indeed often object strongly to having ‘Whiteness’ called out. There is an unwillingness to unpack the baggage of history but to prefer to stay within what Meer has termed a ‘white epistemology of ignorance’. For me, the reluctance of allies are harder obstructions to challenge for any obstruction is offered not with malice but with concern.
This assumed innocence also equates racism with extremism. Meer cites Barnor Hesse, academic of African American Studies who writes about ‘racism’s conceptual double-bind’(Meer, p116). Hesse suggests that racism for many is often associated with the activities and views of the far right rather than a feature of what is convention, mainstream and everyday. Associating racism as something bad and related to extremism provides comfort but does not disrupt the status quo.
American sociologist Joe Feagin challenges those of us who are passionate about social justice and keen to ensure racial justice to engage with the concept of The White Racial Frame. For Feagin, this is a frame shaped over four centuries by colonialism and imperialism which has placed White norms, values, cultures, languages, faiths and beliefs, aspirations and self above others. That frame continues to shape popular culture, of public policy making and on a range of issues that impact such as education, health care, crime and imprisonment, immigration and environment issues.
A failure to go backwards to understand how history has shaped and continues to impact on the present, means we cannot see how structures, institutions and institutional culture can perpetuate and maintain racial injustice. Rather we revert to a continuance of the ‘one bad apple in the barrel’ explanation and if we therefore remove that one bad apple (the racist police officer, the ill-informed teacher, the unprofessional medical practitioner) then all will be well.
Meer’s book is packed with discussion points as well as data on how racial inequality persists today in the UK. The points raised in the blogs are my initial take-aways.
Reference
Trouillot, M. R (1995) Silencing the Past:Power and the Production of History, Beacon Press
The Cruel Optimism of Racial Justice by Nasar Meer was published in 2022 by Policy Press.
