What is it about?
This paper draws on critical theories of race to explore race as something that is both 'real' and 'unreal'. Race is an unreal category (in that it is not based on coherent scientific or social categories) but it is a social practice that has very real consequences because, despite 'post-racial' claims, we continue to live 'as if' race were real.
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Why is it important?
This is paper is important because it challenges easy and comforting beliefs that we live in a 'post-racial' age. What exactly does it mean to be 'post-racial'? In what senses should we strive to be 'post-racial'? And how should we guard against the trivialisation and denial of racism.
Perspectives
I often read papers that insist on putting the word 'race' in scare quotes. I understand the reasons for this but it led me to think about the extent to which ostensibly well-meaning efforts to challenge pseudo-scientific notions of race can end up merging with a trivialisation of the continued real, social effects of racism.
Paul Warmington
University of Warwick
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Taking race out of scare quotes: race‐conscious social analysis in an ostensibly post‐racial world, Race Ethnicity and Education, September 2009, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/13613320903178253.
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