‘Ireland of the welcomes’? racism and anti-racism in nineteenth-century Ireland

Irish society, North and South, has been slow to develop a social awareness and legal framework in relation to racism. This has resulted, in the main, from an unwillingness to admit to the presence of racism in Irish history and culture. Yet an examination of Irish society at the time of the visits of two black abolitionists to the country Olaudah Equiano in 1791 and Frederick Douglass in 1845—reveals deep currents of racism in both instances. The attempt by Belfast merchant Waddell Cunningham, who had made his fortune through the provisioning of slave plantations in the Caribbean, to establish a slave-trading company in Belfast in 1786 is a case in point. And, in the mid-nineteenth century, the Young Irelanders, a radical and militant nationalist movement, viewed national liberation as more pressing than the abolition of slavery. At the same time, both Equiano and Douglass noted the warm welcome they received, the former from anti-slavery activists, and the latter from such global players in the international abolitionist scene as Daniel O'Connell. Rolston concludes that there is nothing mysterious in contemporary Irish racism and anti-racism. Both have deep historical roots and are ultimately explained by Ireland's complex relationship to colonization: colonized itself, while at the same time intimately involved in colonizing others through the key roles played by Irish people throughout the British empire.     

The post-war paths of occult national socialism: from Rockwell and Madole to Manson

Kaplan takes an in-depth look at the religious and cultic aspects of American national socialism in the post-war era. Beginning with the founder of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell, in the late 1950s, he follows the development of occult beliefs and practices in the tiny and fractious American neo-Nazi movement. He emphasizes as well the brief turn to revolutionary violence in the 1970s through an examination of the National Socialist Liberation Front, and, finally, examines the attraction of Charles Manson and his followers to the occult fringes of the national socialist 'movement'. The article is built primarily on fieldwork, in-depth interviews with adherents of occult national socialist beliefs, and primary source materials from the 1960s to the present.     

Subjective racism,objective racism: the French case

Drawing on a recent survey on xenophobia and racism in France (autumn 2000), Mayer and Michelat compare answers to questions about minorities (measuring objective racism) with answers to a question on a respondent's own feeling as to his or her own racism (subjective racism), and to an open question about what it means to be 'racist'. The results show that, for three-quarters of the sample, the objective and subjective dimensions overlap: the level of subjective racism goes up with scores on the objective racism scale. But there are two deviant groups. The scrupulous (10 per cent), often to be found among principled Catholics or Communists, feel themselves to be racist in spite of their low scores on the objective scale, while the deniers (14 per cent) do not think of themselves as being racist in spite of their high scores. In line with theories of 'subtle racism', members of this latter group seem to be aware of an anti-racist norm and do not consider themselves to be racist, in contradistinction to racists, who admit being so, and are even proud to transgress the norm.     

Transnationalism and the French Nouvelle Droite

ABSTRACT

Born in 1968, the French Nouvelle Droite (ND) is a ‘cultural school of thought’. It created a sophisticated European-wide political culture of the revolutionary right in an anti-fascist age; it helped to nurture the discourse of ‘political correctness’ among extreme right-wing political parties, and turned former French ultra-nationalists into pan-Europeanists seeking to smash the egalitarian heritage of 1789. Bar-On argues that the ND world-view has been shaped by transnational influences and that the ND has, in turn, shaped a decidedly more right-wing political culture in Europe in a transnational spirit. The transnational impact of ND ideas is a product of three key factors: first, the intellectual output and prestige of ND leader Alain de Benoist; second, the ‘right-wing Gramscianism’ of the ND's pan-European project that mimicked earlier attempts to unite interwar fascists and post-war neo-fascists into the revolutionary right; and, finally, the political space opened up by the decline of the European left after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Bar-On concludes by considering the influence of the ND on contemporary European politics, as well as the implications for the struggles against racism and the extreme right.     

The Language of Race

The 1991 Census form for households in Great Britain included, for the first time, a question about ethnic group. The question had nine boxes, eight for named ethnic groups and one for 'any other'. One box had to be ticked for each member of the household. Brian Klug discusses his own reaction to the (so-called) ethnic question, and explains why, as a Jew of European extraction, he did not tick the box marked White. He examines several issues raised by the ethnic question, including the following: why this question is different from other questions on the form; the definition and use of the words 'racial' and 'ethnic'; the vocabulary of colour ('black', 'white' etc.) in the language of race; the idea that 'white' is an ethnic category; the claim that the ethnic question is an instrument for combatting racism; one proposal for improving the question by removing the 'racial' components in the categories.     

The “Fragility of Goodness”: Black Parents’ Perspective about Raising Children in Toronto,Winnipeg, and St. John’s of Canada

How does one measure ‘goodness’ when all ethical choices lead to evil outcomes? To answer this question, this essay uses Martha Nussbaum’s fragility of goodness, critical race theory, and data from a SSHRC-funded study, in which we critically examine the parenting experiences of Black families in Canada. Findings suggest how racist ideas in Canada function as “color-blind” laws and policies that affect the everyday lives of Black people including their parenting practices. Our study calls on child welfare services in Canada to develop a comprehensive understanding of Black parenting practices, perhaps enabling more Black children to remain home safely.     

The Perils of Pregnancy Ferguson v. City of Charleston

The United States Supreme Court, in its decision Ferguson v. City of Charleston,ruled that to conduct drug tests on pregnant women in public hospitals and to share that information with the police without obtaining a search warrant amounted to a violation of the women's constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment. Set within the political context of public policy designed to monitor the activities of pregnant women and the ongoing incidence of prosecutions for ‘foetal abuse’,this note shows how the Supreme Court’s decision, while on the one hand vindicating the rights of pregnant women to be free from unlawful searches upon their person, does not definitively determine the important question of the extent to which the state may regulate women’s behaviour during pregnancy. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Recontextualizing racism and segregation by ways of “cozification” in a TV sports broadcast

This paper qualitatively examines a Swedish case where a TV broadcaster takes it upon itself to confront discriminatory practices in sports by addressing issues of segregation and racism in relation to the practice of cross-country skiing in a seven-part series called Stephan, Gliding. It is argued that racism and segregation are addressed through processes of cozification of both form and content. This means that the producers use semiotic resources and strategies of narration that strip the subject matter of any threatening and confrontative components, and instead embed it within a cosy story frame that will not alienate those watching. At a denotative level, Stephan, Gliding tells the story of a beginner who takes on the challenge of skiing in the 90-kilometre cross-country ski competition The Vasa Race. On an ideological level, the programme can be read critically as the narrative of a foreigner deciding to undertake the mission of his own integration into Swedish society by ways of learning to ski. It is argued that the existence of these simultaneous, competing discourses may be a better strategy to maintain a successful “communicative relationship” with audiences than to not address the topic at all.     

The Class Context of Temporary Immigration,Racism and Civic Nationalism in Taiwan

This article adopts a Marxist framework for examining the class bases of racism against guest workers in Taiwan, focusing on the legislative and administrative mechanisms adopted by the state to racialise and recompose the labour market and to politically repress immigrants, largely for the benefit of capital accumulation. It examines the ways in which racism against immigrants has constituted an important element of Taiwan's civic nationalism; an ideology which depicts guest workers' resistance as a source of social instability in the nation-state. The article also considers the ways in which the state has adapted to immigrants' struggles, together with the immigrants' and local workers' efforts to unite in solidarity against wage exploitation and racism. The article brings together evidence supporting the contention that Marxist analysis is the most effective means of explaining both racism and anti-racism.