Ward, Ivan (2024) Reflections on the object of racism. Journal of Psychosocial Studies, 17 (2). pp. 204-213. ISSN 1478-6737 Full text available

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Abstract

When we use the word ‘racism’ it seems that we are dealing with a more or less known reality – the discrimination, prejudice, brutalisation or exploitation of a person or group of people on the basis of their ‘race’ or ethnicity. The term may be qualified by prefixes such as ‘institutional’, ‘systemic’, ‘interpersonal’ and so on (or even ‘unconscious’), but we generally think that we know what we are talking about, and racism appears to have a discrete existence as a definable social reality and object of enquiry. Keval undermines this tendency for reification. By identifying the racist imaginary as a ‘constellation of thoughts and feelings’, he acknowledges the complexity of the object of study and implies that there is something about it that can easily slip our grasp, that it is not quite such a discrete phenomenon as we may have imagined. Adding ‘melancholia’ into the orbit of ‘racism’ is one illustration of this conceptual indeterminacy and new-found complexity. Most often we assume that ‘melancholia’ applies to the victims of racism, having endured a history and current experiences of dispossession, deprivation, violence, loss and neglect. Depression and the strategies to keep depression at bay may be major factors for people of colour. In White-majority societies, the casual and unavoidable rejections, slights and insults that accumulate over the years may lead to intense feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. African-American philosopher and political activist, Cornel West, puts the case more strongly when he adds ‘lovelessness’ to this pernicious list (West, 1994). Keval’s description of growing up as a person of colour in the 1970s acknowledges the impact of racism on his own life with stories that resonated with my own childhood experiences, as did Anne Aiyegbusi’s equally vivid account (Aiyegbusi, 2024). But he makes an unexpected connection to those writing the racist graffiti or marching with the National Front and urging him to ‘Go back home’: ‘Perhaps there is an irony here in the way the immigrant and the hostility of racism are strangely united by the experience of loss’, he writes, citing David Gadd (2010) and Paul Gilroy (2004) as two researchers who ‘situate racist hatred within the turmoil of socio-cultural melancholia’. As a ‘constellation of thoughts and feelings’ (and, we might add, intentions, drives, anxieties, defence mechanisms and so on) racism confronts us as a complicated and composite structure, with different components and multiple functions within the psychic economy of the (racist) subject and the society of which he is part. I am taking this perspective as permission to write round and about the subject rather than approach it head-on, with some personal stories that may seem, at first sight, unconnected to the topic. My approach may seem ‘left field’, but I hope you can bear with me.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Accepted for publication 05 June 2024 • First published online 15 July 2024
Subjects:	Human Psychological Processes > Strange Environment/Situation Race and Culture > Race- Sociology
Department/People:	Visiting Lecturer
URI:	https://repository.tavistockandportman.ac.uk/id/eprint/2946

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