In this episode, we talk about postracialism and colourblind narratives with Paul Warmington, Visiting Professor at Coventry University, Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths and author of ‘Permanent Racism’.
Britain’s current postracial perspectives are facile so we need to reconceptualise critical race theory from a British standpoint. This means foregrounding the concept of ‘permanent racism’ and decolonising public debate and antiracism itself.
Find out more about the book: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/permanent-racism
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Find out more: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/
Professor Paul wimington is one of the UK’s leading scholars in the sociology of race and education his latest book permanent racism race class and the myth of post-racial Britain exposes the double speak behind the racism has no place in our society narrative bringing critical race Theory and black Atlantic
Thought to bear on Race equality in the UK Paul wimington is visiting a professor at centry University and visiting research fellow at Goldsmith’s University of London and is with me today to talk about his new book Paul welcome to transforming Society hi Rebecca how nice to be here it’s great
To have you here thanks so much um well let’s dive in straight away so the permanence of racism from which the title of your book is derived is a condition of society that was identified by Professor Derek Bell back in the ‘ 80s one of the founders of critical race
Theory so I wondered if you could start us off by explaining a little more about this unfolding story of permanent racism what’s meant by the term and why it’s as important to understand today as it was back in the 80s when D Bell first coin
The phrase sure the title of my book is permanent racism race class and the myth of post-racial Britain and the title permanent racism was important to me because I wanted readers to kind of respond with the the same initial double take almost cognitive dissonance that that I I experienced when I first
Encountered Derek Bell’s book which is called faces at the bottom of the well the permanence of racism so it’s a book that b published in 1992 and and it’s really one of the key statements in critical race Theory and it was really the subtitle the permanence of racism that kind of made
Me sort of take a step back because I think for those of us who who work in in anti-racist circles the basis of our work has always been this idea you we shall overcome and the idea that you the moral Arc of the universe you bends towards Justice and so forth so there’s
Always this idea that if you’re an anti-racist you’re kind of moving towards this shining city on a hill where racism has been overcome decisively and so I thought what does this guy Derek B what mean by talking about the permanence of racism sure surely you can’t really mean that and of
Course in one sense Derek Bell did mean it Derek Bell described his thought as as racial realism and to understand that it’s important to understand where Derek Bell was coming from he come through the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 70s in the USA he was a civil rights
Lawyer and a legal scholar and therefore Derek Bell’s founding question was well why after Decades of civil rights legislation and equalities legislation do racial inequalities and racial Injustice still persist in our and it was really a kind of rephrasing of of France fanon’s great question you
Know France Fon used used to talk about the fact that Western Society had developed all the tools of political philosophy of science and social science and and ethics which should have overcome the great problem of of racism and but Fon said well well somehow you know the modern world has failed to do
That and DK Bell was kind of re you rephrasing that idea in his own setting and B’s conclusion as to why racial Injustice persists was simply that you we all like to talk about race as a as a social construction but what does that
Mean and for me and for B you what race is what racism is is it’s a political tool it’s a tool for structuring and ordering society and what Belle said was well the reason that that racism persists is just that as a tool for ordering andru ing Society you know it’s
It’s just too useful it’s just too effective um it’s Ed societies across the globe and obviously you know Bella grown up in a world of segregation in the USA you we had a part in South Africa we had the politer forms of of what was once known as the color bar in
The UK and we have you Britain and and that matter Frances and Spain’s and Belgium’s histories of colonialism you racism was too valuable a tool for ordering societ and stabilizing Society for it to be relinquished anytime soon so what bell was saying was look you know he didn’t
Cre came to have a crystal ball what B was saying was look you know it may or may not be that the moral Arc of the universe bends towards justice but for our practical purposes as people trying to combat racism it’s best to bracket all of that and given what we know and
What we know about the last few hundred years of Western Society then it’s really best for us to regard regard racism as a permanent feature of the societies that we live in particularly those societies that are grown out of colonialism imperialism and slavery so there there
Was a kind of paradox there that b was offering he said no if if you’re really committed to combating racism then accept it as as permanent for our purposes and B wasn’t sorry he uses that term doesn’t he that it’s that he’s using the term as a prescriptive is that
Right not a descriptive so no no no no it’s the other way around that that’s really important yeah what Belle said was you know when I talk about the permanence of racism I’m talking about it as a descriptive term in other words I’m describing the way things are not as a prescriptive term
I’m not saying that racism should be permanent I’m saying that in the societies that we built you it seems to be you an embedded element an embedded tool cultural tool political tool within those societies and Bell wasn’t saying uh that nothing ever changes he wasn’t saying there are never
Any improvements but what he was saying was that you know positional gains in legislation in policy in educational achievement in in employment figures their positional gains but they don’t mean that racism actually disappears as an axis of conflict in our society so Bell wasn’t saying that we should do
Nothing in fact he was saying quite the reverse but what he was saying is that our societies are really subject to a constant cycle of progress and then regression as regards the struggle Against Racism so that cycle of progress and regression is what he was talking about by using that phrase the
Permanence of racism which I suppose speaks to this notion of why it’s just as important that we’re that we’re talking about it that it’s that it’s coming under highlight again now through your book as as it was in the 1980s because there is still this because this cycle continues to exist the progression
And reversal and regression that’s that’s right and and you in the book I mean I I I identify uh moments in you know contemporary British society in which I think we can see that cycle of progress IM regression happening so again you know at the end of the ’90s
Beginning of the 2000s you had the firston report into police handling of the murder of Steven Lawrence and you know for moment that again we were told that yeah it was a turning point a kind of neveragain moment as regards the way in which our society will address racism
But really within a few years of the mcferson report you began to see a backlash in our institutions in policing in education in government and again you those neveragain moments are are a really important notion in critical race Theory also that b was pointing to you
Know B said that he talked about he used a concept that he called contradiction closure and by contradiction closure what bell meant were were these moments in policy or legislation where we are told just that that we’ve reached a turning point you the the our attitudes to race and racism have changed
Fundamentally and and and and and forever these never again moments you know we’ll never again see the Metropolitan police handling a case in the way that they handled the murder of Steven Lawrence for instance we’ll never again see institutional discrimination whether it’s institutional racism or institutional homophobia or
Institutional misogyny take root in our in our institutions in the way that would we saw it in in previous decades and you what Belle said was you know societies tend to kind of take those moments governments take those moments and they present them as moments of contradiction closure where basically
We’ve dealt with it it’s done with you know basically yeah we’ve dealt with the race problem it’s over now and you know I i’ I pointed out moments like that you in the book and again I I suppose key if you like the kind of key context of the
Book is probably the moment between the Resurgence of black lives matter as a movement following the police killing in the states of George Floyd there was a global Resurgence in the black lives matter movement and you know in the immediate aftermath of that we saw you know our major institutions you know
Professing their Affinity with black lives matter we saw politicians and and major figures taking the knee and uh you using the black Square on social media and and all of this stuff and yet what my book argues is that that was really quite a short window yeah uh within our
Public Arena uh it really wasn’t long at all before there was a major push back against black lives matter and against the kind of Consciousness about racial Injustice that had emerged in many quarters out of black lives matter so those the yeah those Cycles are still with us the
Cycles that the Bell talked about in term yeah understood in terms of the permanence of racism I mean there’s a there was a sense of which which I think you sort of talked to a sense of a distancing oh that’s America um and and and so you know there’s there’s a sense
Of um Britain is somehow exceptional in in terms of its racist non-racist situation which is there’s there’s yeah I think that there’s there’s a tremendous very powerful British exceptionalism when it comes to issues of of of race and racism so I mean you we we can see this constantly in Britain
We’re always more at ease with pointing the finger across the Atlantic and saying well gosh you know look at those terrible America look at those American cops look at the those American politicians look at Donald Trump you know that they simply aren’t as civilized as us you know their racism is
Far worse than our racism and and you can see this you know every every month when you know kids uh have and other organizations you have you have have Black History Month you know and just how often Black History Month is a kind of listing of of Ros of Parks and Martin
Luther King and and other figures from the USA and again you know there there there were Mass demonstrations in this country quite rightly so following the the the murder of of of George Floyd in May 2020 but there there have been numerous uh deaths at the hands of the
Police you deaths of of black men in particular at the hands of the police in this country and they happen for decades and and there have been a number of very high-profile instances you the the the killing of uh D Atkinson a former astonvilla footballer uh in Birmingham
You know where where where I live and yet these instances you they’ve been they’ve been moaned to an extent you know but but but but they’re never quite treated in the same way that that we treat similar events terrible events happening in the USA yes yes I mean well I mean this this
Sort of speaks to so we’ve got this sort of modern rhetoric that uh I referred to a bit in the introduction that we live in this and is in your title that we live in postracial Britain um one in which racism has no place and and I
Really think it would be useful to you know go a bit further in thinking about how these how that notion of postracialism is used to prematurely close out these uncomfortable about racism because you know it is still very much lived and experienced in everyday society and yet the narrative suggests
Otherwise this postracial narrative suggests otherwise yeah that’s that’s that’s right yeah the the dominant post-racial narrative suggests otherwise and the post-racial narrative is very much as you say about about closing off difficult conversations and closing off the possibilities for Action Against Racism so what what is post-racialism
About the first thing I’d say about postracialism is is I think what we’re seeing currently in the UK actually is rooted in a much much longer uh more strongly held desire for what Hazel Carby you know one of the great s cultural theorist cultural studies people who who worked with Stuart Hall
And so forth here’s a kby talked about Britain’s desire for a conclusive end to these problems of race and racism and and I think that’s kind of underlying a lot of what we we we we I talk about when I talk about about what I call State postracialism but but I’ll just
Tell you what I think of the perhaps two other really important under ly strands within this this this postracialism that we see I mean one was if we wanted to be most generous there is a kind of well- version of of post-racialism which I guess is rooted in what’s often termed
Uh not as anti-racism but as non-racism um and non-racism is really to put it crudely is not so much about actually combating racism as just not being racist you know ourselves kind of individual level and also an Institutional level and yeah it’s rooted in an understandable kind of abstract
Rationale which is the really we can see the damage that racism has done to our our world to our societies uh in the past and therefore one argument about how to actually take Society forward is you know to ensure that no community no group of people are either disadvantaged
Or advantaged by prescriptive categories of which they have no say you know race and and for that matter gender and sexuality and and disability and so forth so the idea of non-racism is is very much that you have equal treatment before the law that you have equal treatment by our our institutions you
Know policing Education Health and so forth and again you there’s there in one sense you that we probably all agree that there’s yes we do kind of want equal treatment but that tends to retreat into a kind of formalism which says look we have a formula here let’s
Really not really talk about people or communities in terms of race at all let’s just kind of regard everyone as non-racial blanks and that will somehow actually produce equality and fairness but and this goes back to Derek Bell also Bell was very very as a legal scholar was very very skeptical about
About these formalist ideas which said basically look if you apply the correct abstract formula to the workings of the law the workings of social policy the workings of government then everything will be fine because you for Bell and for me that that’s a very very ahistorical position what it doesn’t do
Is take account of the fact that we don’t live on a Level Playing Field inequalities are already there and just this non-racism non-racialism this this this kind of unseeing of of race in itself doesn’t actually give us a clue as to how to address the equalities that that that persist so that’s that’s
Silences them it just silences them absolutely absolutely and if wanted to be generous we could say that well you you there is something well meant about about some iterations about non-racism you know it’s based on this this abstract liberal principle of of equal or same treatment but then you have I
Think a more bad faith version which which I call and which Scholars such as Eduardo Bon Silva and cherl Harris and uh Kimberly crch have talked about as colorblindness or colorblind racism which is it really is kind of wanting us to to push towards the belief that you
That race racism really isn’t there at all in other words this this this kind of iteration of post-racialism this colorblindness basically says look race racism you know uh have declined in their social savings they’re just not really important not as important as they were and therefore race is no
Longer a valid lens through which to view Society either sociologically or or in terms of of of of social policy or politics and you know this this this colorblindness it doesn’t literally argue that there is no racism at all but what it does is to Discount ideas about structural racism and institutional
Racism so in a way it can see that racism might exist you in the mind of some bad apples at the individual level but what it won’t do is to countenance the idea that actually our major institutions housing and health and education and policing and government actually all Also Serve to reproduce
Racial inequalities and racial injustices you use this term a historical didn’t you and and it is that sense that the Level Playing Field exists because whatever we say today is is is the truth it misses this not where we are today is a product that’s right
And that is as true of individuals as it is of systems and institutions that’s that’s right didn’t emerge out of you know today’s edict on how we feel about things they emerged out of a history which was deeply and intentionally racist in in in how it was op yes but
But absolutely but but there is this belief that you that you can just you can just impose a kind of complete historical break and and and and start again it’s it’s almost the kind of religious belief you know that a millenarian belief you know that we
We’ve entered a new age now all that stuff and and and and I think that’s a very very important idea that’s contained within postracialism or a FASA kind of postracialism as I call it and I’ll tell you why I call it that in a moment but but yeah but but there
Very much is the idea that such racism as exists at all is very much a hold over yeah a dying Remnant from a a darker you know less enlightened age you know therefore it’s really external to our society it’s brought in by the odd Bad Apple or the odd dark memory here
And there it’s not really something that exists and is reproduced in in the present but this this kind of colorblind ISM I mean it does a couple of things one is it tends to work and we find this in policy again and again we find in in
Some areas of research what it tends to do because we know they’re asked to racialized inequalities inequalities between communities you know they have to be explained but explained in in ways that that are nothing to ideas about institutional racism or structural racism you know so therefore what we
Look for is anything but racism to account for racialized inequalities so therefore what you you get a couple of things one is you get this search for non-racial factors so there are certain forms of of I don’t know of of of regression analysis that you see in
Social science and in monitoring and so forth you know um I’m I’m I’m not kind of discounting you know the the usefulness of regression and us all together but what you see is these attempts to say well actually you know it appears that these inequality racialized but actually things like
Previous parental education or housing or regionality are actually more important than rate and you think well it’s a complete misunderstanding of how racism works you know because there’s nothing actually wrong with looking at parental education or previous uh education uh to explain the say the educational attainment of of of
Particular communities this coming around to intersectionality so this this idea that you know it’s it’s it’s all the factors including racism not excluding racism so so so yes so the problem is that you can look at parental education but parental education was already shaped by racism and you can
Look at you can look at University graduates and say well let’s look at their previous school education that’s fine but but that previous education was also shaped by racism an affluence and employment they’re also shaped by they don’t exist apart from it so you get this this searching around for things
That are supposedly non-racial factors so supposed to see uh racial inequalities as entirely non-racial you know and the other thing of course which which which kind of comes out of that is because even the colorblind thinkers know there are still racialized inequalities in society what you very
Often have therefore is this kind of inevitable Retreat into cultural deficit theories right by which I mean that you know you get this argument that that well you know it’s certainly not about institutional racism or structural racism because we we we you don’t really accept the existence of those things so
If this community or that Community is having poor outcomes in terms of employment or education or the the criminal justice system then you know maybe it’s something to do with their you their particular culture with their their family structures and and I don’t know and and and and their their family
Structures and their and their ethics and their their their their cultural practic and so you go back to this whole kind of community blaming which is this because we’re not racist we that’s none of those things are racist to to talk to absolutely so so this is where we we
Kind of move into the postracial framework here so so what you actually have is is is the kind yeah I talk about this you this this non-racism and this colorblind ISM uh as produc producing a kind of FASA postracialism because there are there are very interesting and important challenging ideas about
Postracialism and yeah and the possibility of post-racial societies and identities you know and you can see this you see in the work of I know Anthony aai or Paul Gil or Ruth Wilson Gilmore they’ll they’ll you know they they explore some of these ideas and very exciting challenging almost futuristic
Ways but the postracialism that we have currently is not that at all it’s really not about removing or combating racism so much as it is about just discouraging people from talking about racism at all from discouraging any R racism post post RIS yeah exact so so so I call it fad
It’s easy it’s kind of bland and and and it’s just premature uh you don’t need to need to look at my book to look at the many examples that have come out of you know your recent reports you know the Louise cas’s report from this year 2023 into you Metropolitan Police practices
And yeah then you have the Lamy report on the legal system and and and and and you had the race equality audit of racial disparity audit of 2018 you you’ve had masses and masses of reports that just kind of sit on shell that tell us about racialized inequalities in
Britain and the role of racism institutional racism within them they’re they’re currently sitting on sitting on a shelf somewhere you know in the home office or or wherever so therefore you know this I call it fasar racism because because it’s you it’s just so self-evidently premature but the other
Phrase I use as I said this fasar racism this bad faith sorry this FASA postra racism this FASA postracialism has become the basis of what I now call a state Le post-racialism right so for me it’s now not accidental it’s not incidental what we’re seeing you again and again is government rhetoric that
Constantly encourages us to to move on from talking about race and racism in the book for instance I talk about how quickly after the black lives matter Resurgence Resurgence of 2020 you you saw government rhetoric and government policy an example being the the cred report which is a report produced in
2021 by the the commission on race and ethnic disparities sorry get the exact I just call it the CED report but people people will know what what I’m referring to uh which really was initially commissioned as a response to to uh black lives matter and response to the events of 2020 but
Really ended up foregrounding a complete dismissal of institutional racism which which it said really really is is is an inflated con concept that that we shouldn’t really be applying in in in in policy does really exist was was what it came up with that’s that’s that’s that’s
Right and it wasn’t just the Craig report you you you had reports soon after from the uh House of Commons education committee again which became obsessed with the idea that that um your white ideas about white privilege were being were being kind of taught across
The school system and that this was a a cause of underachievement amongst white workingclass children and you have many many similar kinds of of arguments but and and in one sense there was nothing absolutely new about this I mean I I remember uh you know a decade earlier
When David Cameron was prime minister you he he talked about need to turn the page on the failed policies of multiculturalism but there’s no doubt that when the cred report came out Boris Johnson was prime minister at the time and he uh you he trailed the cred report
By saying that you know that his intention was to change the narrative on Race yeah what does that mean yeah yeah yeah we came to understand exactly what it meant which was this kind of discounting of institutional racism and again this casting of anti-racism as a bogus and divisive thing and critical
Race Theory again is one of the kind of empty signifiers that’s often kind of thrown up you know uh to sort of um disparage any kind of anti-racist activity so you know not long before the cig report came out um an equalities Minister stood up in the house of
Commment and and talked about critical race Theory and actually said you know you know this government is unequivocally against critical race Theory and people like myself who been working with critical Race 3 for the previous I don’t know 15 years or whatever just thought what you know you
Know you no one’s ever ever heard critical race Theory referred to uh in the House of Commons before and yet apparently it it now it now you has captured every institution in the in in in the country this is this is but but again you it wasn’t a real reference to
Critical race Theory as it exists I mean it was just the usage of critical race Theory as a as a a signifier for any kind of talk or of race or racism and so we need to be unequivocally opposed to critical race Theory really it’s a way
Of saying well you you need to stop talking about race and racism so I I I actually said that we’ve reached a stage now of of State Le or state postracialism and and it’s very much a backlash against I suppose this what I what I often call the state
Multiculturalism that we saw in the 1980s and the 19 90s in Britain you know the um the London education Authority and the GLC and and all the work that they were doing and work that was done in many local authorities around multiculturalism and anti-racism it’s there’s we got to the early 2000s and
And the retreat began and that Retreat needed to be reinforced after 2020 and and black lives matter hence you know we kind of get to this stage of State postracialism yeah yeah yeah yeah I wanted to ask about this there is a a desire you you called it contradiction
Closure and I think somewhere along there as well is that sense of um I think you’re right about this idea that sort of don’t come to us with with racist problems unless you’re coming with a fix as well and what critical race Theory as I understand it and what
Permanent racism does is it defies that sort of uh sense of uh there’s a fix h here’s the 10-point agenda that we now need to follow in order to then put that to bed and say that’s that’s all done with that’s yeah yeah and and I think
You know of course you be yeah you if if if we’re to be generous of course you yeah we could understand to an extent the the the search for you know practical strategies and so forth but but but they’re very often uh they also become kind of forces by which to
Regulate anti-racism to regulate talk talk about racism so the phrase that that you that you refer to it’s it’s um a quote from uh Frank wilderson who terms himself as as a as a an afro pessimist which um is is several steps along the road even from critical race
Theory so people who kind of bulk at critical race Theory I don’t know what they do if they ever actually came across afro pessimism but anyway to cut a long story short you know what the quote that I take from werson in the book it’s it basically talks about black
Talk yeah an anti-racist talk more generally as as being coerced talk in other words the response that you get from institutions is don’t come to us with with any bad news about race don’t come to us with any bad news about racism unless you have a solution buil
Built in and you know therefore you you get a very very constrained kind of anti-racist talk and you get a kind of anti-racist talk that that that that is steered towards kind of facile Solutions and and again towards you what bell term contradiction closure the idea that oh
If we if we Implement a new committee here uh or you know apply a new monitoring form there well that that that that’ll be the end of it that you we’ll have dealt with racism you move on yeah yeah yeah yeah that’s right just just yeah just just move on stop talking
About it and I think I think it’s a really important quote that kind of informs the whole book really um that this wasn’t a book that was written to yeah you know I I think e even even some people who use aspects of critical race Theory and you claim to be working with
Critical race Theory they’ll they they’ll talk about Bell’s work and Kimberly cr’s work and and they’ll talk about these big Ideas you know racial realism and um interest convergence and and contradiction closure all these very difficult ideas and then they’ll feel kind of obligated to kind of in the last
Few paragraphs of their article or chapter they’ll they’ll feel kind of obligated to sort of come up with uh you two or three you you quite facile uh recommendations as as to what we should do to yeah and and and it’s I guess what critical race theory is doing and I
Think what I’d like people to take away from the book first of all it’s it’s the you the problems are are sadly much much bigger than that you know it doesn’t mean that there is there’s no point at all in you know applying certain kinds of you know policy measures you know in
Particular areas but the actual problem the persistent problem of racism and R racial Injustice it it’s it’s really one that that we have to take seriously and to take it seriously is it’s a very uncomfortable Pro process the it it and again we can go back to France fan and
All for that matter web de voice and and and so forth what what those great black Atlantic thinkers are saying to us is is well you know there there there really would need to be a whole sale change in society to actually address and to begin to to
Overcome the problems of racism that and with that notion of of overcoming that was a question I really did want to ask you which is about how these Concepts then play into so so permanent racism more broadly the study of critical race Theory how does that affect social change and activism
Without trying to be the person that’s sat here saying we move past here Paul yeah I think yeah I think there are there are a couple of things I mean you know at heart what critical race Theory really is it’s it’s a theory of institutional racism so it it’s it’s
Really concerned with how are our great institutions State institutions and state aligned institutions reproduce racism reproduce racial inequality reproduce racial in Injustice and therefore what it does is to begin to analyze those in those that reproduction of Injustice by really calling into question the claims to neutrality and
Meritocracy that you know that dominate our institutions today so what CR Theory does is to say well we cannot take it face value uh the education system or the legal system or the health system or whatever we we we we we can’t take their claims to be neutral institutions and we
Have to look at the ways and work at the ways in which they are not neutral so you know our education system isn’t isn’t neutral our legal systems aren’t neutral but also the you the parallel the kind of parallel discourses that institutions throw up where they they
Would tell us what what good law is or what good policy is or what good education is also the these uh ideas about what is good what is good education what is a just law these things are also not neutral so so one what critical race Theory does is is is
Is it can really embolden us to actually uh refuse to accept our institutions as being neutral when it comes to to race and racism secondly uh what it can really I think encourage us to do is to constantly refuse that Dynamic of contradiction closure where institutions
Can say to us well actually you know we we we we dealt with we dealt with those we dealt with with the old races and that’s that’s that’s that’s dumb you know we introduced a new a new policy and and it’s all done with so there’s a
Kind of refusal of of of um contradiction closure and again I I guess what bell says um and and this is where B’s work does come out of very much out of the Civil Rights struggle because I I’ve heard people who criticize critical race Theory and say
No no we we don’t believe any of that we we we we we hold fast to the principles of Martin Luther King you know they haven’t got a clue what Martin Luther King is actually about they don’t they don’t they’re not interested in Martin Luther King in the sense that he that he
Brought thousands of people out on the street that he confronted racist policing that he called for reparations you that he was a very very very unpopular figure in the USA a very divisive figure more divisive than critical race Theory ever ever could be but no your critical race Theory
Actually comes in very large part you out out of that that Civil Right struggle that’s what people like Derek Bel had actually grown up and one of the things that that Bell takes from this the Civil Rights struggle again is that working on the basis you that racism is
A permanent feature of our societies doesn’t actually paralyze us you shouldn’t actually paralyze us you know and and it doesn’t let us off the hook it actually says that that no you know once you understand that permanence that actually yet is your incentive to go on
And on and on working you know and combating racism combating social injustice so you I remember seeing a comment on Maring King the other day which said that one of the reasons that King was such a challenging leader to his followers was that you know we often
Think of him him as promising the you know the the that we should overcome but actually what what king also promised was tribulation you know that that that really you know there there isn’t going to be any any easy way around racism the only way you can confront racism and
Possibly move past it is to actually go through it and and that that will require tribulation it will require difficulty it will require frustration and critical race Theory when you when Bel talks about the permanence of racism he says you know the permanence of racism mean doesn’t mean that we don’t
Act it means it means that we have to act but we don’t act on the basis of assuming that our actions will lead to a kind of easy facile solution you know and as supp the final thing that I’d like people to take away from the book
Again does go back to that quote by frck werson about the coercion of black and you know by extension anti-racist speech you know this idea that you shouldn’t come to us talking about racism unless you’ve got a solution built in you know because what wilderson is really saying
Is is well no one of the first things that we have to do is to speak freely you know and there’s a lot of talk today about about Free Speech but I but I I I find very little talk about racism is really freely voiced there’s still a lot
Of ion a lot of intimidation a lot of anti anti-racist rhetoric so yeah so what the book says is is is well look you know even if you don’t have a neat solution you know it’s it’s it’s still you it’s still necessary to to speak up
And eyes and ears and being aware and and speaking to it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah as I said you what critical race Theory does also is to give us some pointers as to the kind of things to keep our eyes and ears open for contradiction closure and interest
Convergence and and and all of this stuff you know that has been really wonderful thank you so much hope I I certainly I certainly enjoyed it I hope I hope it made some sense of of what the book in this whole permanent racism idea is is is about Rebecca and I think you
Know I think it’s great and I think you one of the things that you talked to at the beginning is this notion that the title in some senses has a shock value to it but that’s intentional we we need to be in some senses shocked into a
Recognition of of having to get into dialogue with this term which is which is wonderful yeah thank you thank you so much thank you very much okay Paul’s book permanent racism race class and the myth of post-racial Britain is a brilliant foray into understanding how racism plays out in Britain in our
Immediate as well as more distant past in our present and almost certainly in our future Paul warmington uses critical race Theory and black Atlantic thought to illuminate how postracial disc course is routinely used to silence AR raise and normalize social inequalities experienced by black and brown people
Whilst the book carries a tough message it does so with purpose calling for us to recognize that racism is durable but not Eternal and that our choosing to acknowledge the situation as it is lived and experienced is a powerful and necessary first step