Denial of racism and its implications for local action

Abstract

Literature on modern racism identifies denial as one of its key features. This article examines the discourses of denial that feature in the talk of local anti-racism actors in Australia, and asks what drives these discourses. The research draws on qualitative interviews undertaken with participants involved in local anti-racism in two case study areas, one in South Australia and the other in New South Wales. This article explores the way local participants in the case study areas deployed four discourses to deny or minimise racism: temporal deflections; spatial deflections; deflections from the mainstream; and absence discourses. Place defending and the desire to protect one’s local area from being branded a racist space is discussed as a driver of those local denial discourses. Local denial of racism is also linked to national politics of racism and anti-racism. In particular, the Australian government’s retreat from multiculturalism, and the preference for ‘harmony’ rather than ‘anti-racism’ initiatives, was linked to the avoidance of the language of racism within participants’ responses. The way denial discourses narrow the range of possibilities for local anti-racism is discussed, as is the importance of acknowledgement of racism, particularly institutional and systemic racism. Public acknowledgement of these forms of racism will broaden the scope of local anti-racism.

Discursive Approaches to Race and Racism

“…Studies based on interviews with such participants have thus been able to extend and deepen the findings regarding the discursive features of "new racism" described in the previous section with respect to denials of racism (e.g., Nelson, 2013; faced by discursive researchers regarding links between discursive and embodied or material aspects of race and racism (see, e.g., Sims-Schouten, Riley, & Willig, 2007). For example, Durrheim and Dixon's (2005) analysis of interviews with holidaymakers on a recentlydesegregated beach in South Africa considers the ways in which the participants discursively constructed the desegregated space around them by invoking material features of the beach setting and pointing out the patterns of movement at various times of day of people identified as members of particular racial categories (also see Durrheim, Mtose, & Brown, 2011).…”

Constructing multiculturalism at school: Negotiating tensions in talk about ethnic diversity

“…social class) are erased in order to construct the invoked category as coherent and stable. In the analysis that follows, I show how the tactics of adequation/distinction are used in tandem with discourse strategies common to talk about race and ethnicity, such as denial of racism strategies (Nelson, 2013;Van Dijk, 1992). Together, these afford the construction of stances and local identities in relation to talk about ethnic diversity.…”

“…Managing this tension was most commonly achieved through denial of racism discourse strategies (Nelson, 2013;Van Dijk, 1992), which are used to construct the image of a 'cosmopolitan canopy' in which everybody consents to shared values (Anderson, 2004;Hollingworth and Mansaray, 2012). Extract…”

“…Saliha's response acknowledges that racism 'happens occasionally' (line 4), but this is followed by a number of examples that typically figure in denial of racism discourse (Van Dijk, 1992). In particular, the above extract involves a strategy that Nelson (2013) calls 'deflection from the mainstream' (p. 93). This often involves locating racism with a small number of individuals, thus defining a very narrow scope for any anti-racist activities or policies (e.g.…”

Evidencing the harms of hate speech

“…The harms reported by many interviewees are far from trivial. To treat them as 'lesser' harms, and undeserving of legal redress, is a denial of lived racism that is inconsistent with the aims of hate speech laws (Nelson, 2013).…”