Strategies for challenging and changing racism

It has to be said that this theorising usually rejects the term 'multiculturalism', is very largely based upon analysing the experience of Afro-Caribbeans, and has very little to say about religion (except Rastafarianism as an African roots movement) or about Asians. In fact, it originates in a very specific focus on black film-making and black music, especially hip-hop (Gilroy). Nevertheless, it does reflect a genuine experience, namely, the striking degree of black-white sociability and cultural synthesis, especially amongst young people. This is evident in the high esteem in which black cultural styles are held many whites, in the hero-worship of successful Black 'stars' in football and sport, music and entertainment, and in how black-white marriage and cohabitation has become quite common in a way that has not occurred in the United States. It is particularly important to note that this sociability is not necessarily in a colour-blind assimilationist, "passing for white" context in which racism is ignored. For some young people it can take place in ways in which black ethnicity and anti-racism are emphasised - or, indeed, are the point. Black persons can be admired not in spite of, but because of, their blackness, for their aesthetics, style and creativity as well as for their anti-racist resistance. For example, at a typical performance of the controversial black nationalist rap band, Public Enemy, more than half of the audience will be white. Black culture as a form of creativity as well as a product has become something that a lot of white people want to share.

This perspective on multiculturalism clearly does not accept public-private distinction, but equally clearly the focus is almost exclusively on what is regarded as the private sphere. Whilst theorists like Hall and Gilroy clearly want to emphasise the political character of culture, and of how change in cultural life can affect political possibilities, it is striking that Hall and Gilroy have virtually nothing to say about the implications of their theorising for political institutions and policies, and indeed some of their writings are explicitly anarchist in orientation.

(Gilroy, 1987) "Their contemporary residues, rendered more difficult to perceive by the recent migration of slave descendants into the centres of metropolitan civilisation, also exhibit the tendency to transcend a narrowly national focus. Analysis of black politics must, therefore, if it is to be adequate, move beyond the field of inquiry designated by... categories formed in the intersection of "race" and the nation state... To put it another way, national units are not the most appropriate basis for studying this history for the African Diaspora's consciousness of itself has long been defined in and against constricting national boundaries."

Traditionally, minority ethnicity was regarded as acceptable in Britain if it was confined to the privacy of family and community, and did not make any political demands. Earlier groups of migrants and refugees, such as the Irish or Jews in the 19th and early 20th century, found that peace and prosperity came easier the less public one made one's minority practices or identity. For more recent minority groups of non-European origin, whose physical visibility made them permanently vulnerable to racial discrimination, the model of a privatised group identity was perhaps never viable. But on top of this, they live in a quite different climate of opinion.

Along with other movements such as feminism and gay rights, which challenge the distinction between public and private, ethnic difference is increasingly seen as something that needs not just toleration but also public acknowledgement, respect, resources and representation. While political activism may have declined in some respects, for example in trade unions, there has been a burst of activism and debate around minority issues. This assertiveness often consists of putting forward positive images to counter negative dominant stereotypes and projecting identities as a way of challenging existing power relations or gaining greater physical, institutional and discursive space. Certainly many of the race relations conflicts of recent times, such as the Bradford riots, arise out of a demand for public space, public respect and resources for minority cultures, and for the transmission of such cultures to the young.

It is important to recognise, therefore, that what is often claimed today in the name of equality is more than would have been recognised as such in the 1960s. The shift is from an understanding of equality in terms of individualism and cultural assimilation to a politics of recognition, to equality as encompassing public ethnicity. Equality as not having to hide or apologise for one's origins, family or community but requiring others to show respect for them and adapt public attitudes and arrangements so that the heritage they represent is encouraged rather than contemptuously expected to wither away. There seems, then, to be two distinct conceptions of equal citizenship, with each based on a different view of what is 'public' and 'private'.

These two conceptions of equality may be stated as follows:

I) The right to assimilate to the majority/dominant culture in the public sphere; and toleration of 'difference' in the private sphere.

II) The right to have one's 'difference' (minority ethnicity, etc.) recognised and supported in the public and the private spheres.

In thinking about what kind of multiculturalism is appropriate for Britain it is sensible to keep in mind the current character of ethnic identities and what they suggest for the future. Those born and raised in Britain, strongly associated with their ethnic and family origins; there was very little erosion of group identification down the generations. But, while individuals described themselves in multiple and alternative ways, it was quite clear that groups had quite different conceptions of the kind of group identity that was important to them. The important contrast between groups was that religion was prominent in the self-descriptions of South Asians, and skin-colour in the self-descriptions of Caribbeans. Despite the various forms of anti-racist politics around a black identity of the last two decades - an identity which politicians and theorists have argued is the key post-immigration formation (Modood, 1994) - only a fifth of South Asians think of themselves as black. This is not an Asian repudiation of 'the essential black subject' in favour of a more nuanced and more pluralised blackness, but a failure to identify with blackness at all.

These identities, various as they are, do not necessarily compete with a sense of Britishness. Half of the Chinese but more than two-thirds of those in the other groups also said that they felt British, and these proportions were, as one might expect, higher amongst young people and those who had been born in Britain. The majority of respondents had no difficulty with the idea of hyphenated or multiple identities, but there was evidence of alienation from or a rejection of Britishness too. For example, over a quarter of British-born Caribbeans did not think of themselves as being British (The Race Network Online). It is found that most of the second generation did think of themselves as mostly but not entirely culturally and socially British. They were not however comfortable with the idea of British being anything more than a legal title, in particular they found it difficult to call themselves 'British' because they felt that the majority of white people did not accept them as British because of their race or cultural background; through hurtful 'jokes', harassment, discrimination and violence they found their claim to be British was all too often denied.

For multiculturalism cannot be about encouraging a whole host of lifestyle identities - race, ethnicity, sub-nationality, language, gender, sexual orientation etc. - and yet denying the same to religious identities. This perhaps would not be so problematic but for the fact, as we have seen, that for several important minorities religious identity is more important than the other kinds of identities just listed.