‘The desperation with which many liberals are attempting to make the post-riots story non-racial is testament to the success of postracialism in making us believe that ‘real’ racism is a thing of the past. Hence, for many David Starkey’s outbursts on Newsnight were utterly beyond the pale. However, beyond the fact that Starkey was merely giving voice to the beliefs of many of those who think that water cannons and rubber bullets are necessary, the racial reading of the riots has little to do with overt racism of this nature. Starkey and his ilk are far from extinct. The real racial subtext is less overt and thus more pernicious. It is about the externalisation of those seen as responsible for the riots, their portrayal as bestial and thus as expendable, extinguishable – necessarily and justifiably so. This has always been the aim of racism: a logic for legitimising the discipline, control and even ultimately the murder of those made utterly other.’
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Across the West, something called multiculturalism is in crisis. Regarded as the failed experiment of liberal elites, commentators and politicians compete to denounce its corrosive legacies; parallel communities threatening social cohesion, enemies within cultivated by irresponsible cultural relativism, mediaeval practices subverting national ‘ways of life’ and universal values. In beautifully belligerent writing, this unique and important new book forcefully challenges this familiar narrative of the rise and fall of multiculturalism by refuting the existence of a coherent era of ‘multiculturalism’ in the first place.
After an inspiring foreword by Guardian-journalist Gary Younge, the authors argue that what we are witnessing is not so much a rejection of multiculturalism as a rejection of lived multiculture. In documenting mainstream racism and the anxieties that inform it, Lentin and Titley show that the crisis is a projection of neoliberal societies’ disjunctures. This book combines theory with a reading of contemporary events and argues that challenging this notion provides activists with a chance to ultimately transcend resurgent racism.
