Ethnic Deviant Labels within a Terror-Panic Context: Excusing White Deviance

Abstract

34We are supposedly living in post-race times. This refers to a deconstructive approach to identity and social relations, in an attempt to move beyond traditional constructions of race. More recently, within the 'war on terror' context, post-race discussions have specifically been considered within debates about citizenship, community cohesion, multiculturalism and securitisation. This has produced a multiculturalism -national identity -terrorism narrative that makes reference to inclusiveness and legalistic measures for combating racism, and yet in reality results in the securitisation of racerelations and black and minority ethnic populations. The 'war on terror' has been articulated in ways which produce a new mode of racism and ethnic discrimination, for instance what is referred to as 'xeno-racism'. This allows discriminatory practices to continue in ever more intensified, state 'legitimated' and publicly accepted ways. For example, consider the regimes of racial spatialization and bodily control in stop and search practices under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984) (1) and sections 44 and 45 of the Terrorism Act (2000) (2).Using the case of the recent terror-panics, in particular its narrative around the 'Islamic terrorist', this paper looks at how constructions of deviance continue to draw on an already embedded racist discourse, which is delivered within rhetoric of anti-Muslim racism and white (3) superiority. It is argued that when certain constructions of deviance occur, there is at the same time a dissolving of the deviance perpetuated by others in the same context. Within the terror-panic context, this is an ethnically loaded process. The paper draws on the work of Goffman (1963) and Becker (1963), in order to develop understanding of how deviants not only exist in relation to those they are seen to threaten and those who have enough power to control them (Pfohl 2002), but also how their deviant status is often used to cover the deviance of desirable 'normals'. In recent times, and especially within the terror-panic context, this occurs by presenting particular black and minority ethnic groups, namely those of Middle Eastern appearance, or of South Asian or Arabic heritage and of the Muslim faith, or what I term in this paper: 'brown bodies', as criminal, i.e. the 'Islamic terrorist'. At the same time, other ethnic groups, largely those of European heritage and of a Christian faith, i.e. what I term in this paper: 'white bodies', are largely situated as un-problematic. This is because white bodies are able to draw on the centrality and normality of whiteness in order to detach labels of deviance. This occurs even when the latter is associated with behaviour and activity that is clearly deviant and discriminatory, i.e. the English Defence League (4) and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes (5). Ethnic Deviant Labels within a Terror-Panic Context: Excusing White Devianceby Tina Patel, University of Salford Abstract This paper considers ethnically loaded deviant labels within a terror-panic ...

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“…The invisibility of white extremism and the entry into the mainstream of anti-immigration, anti-Muslim, and anti-other sentiments creates new anxieties. Whiteness remains a privilege in general terms, but also in specific cases regarding the analysis, understanding, and communication of violent extremism per se (Patel 2013). Brown male bodies are regulated within particular spatial contexts, where identities are qualified as global; however, it omits the idea that many British South Asian Muslim men seek a localized realization of identities in context (Isakjee 2016), which is denied due to patterns of "othering" at the national and global levels.…”

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“…We should also be deeply suspicious of any feedback loop whereby representation of 'suspects' influences eye-witness reports. In her discussion of the 'browning' of bodies as deviant, Tina Patel draws our attention to the ways in which Charles De Menezes (the Brazilian man shot by police at a London tube station on 22nd July 2005) was mis-identified as 'Asian', he was not wearing the 'heavy-coat' that witnesses 'saw' but a light denim jacket and no wires were visible from beneath his clothing (Patel 2013). De Menezes was 'visually resignified' (Pugliese 2006) in the terms of wider public discourse about ethnicity and 'terrorist appearance'.…”