Tag: racism

MASS DETENTION – THE LAST TIME AROUND

June 29, 2019 by Kenan Malik

Against the background of the debate about squalor and brutality of the USA’s immigrant detention centres – and whether they constitute ‘concentration camps’, a debate I might engage in sometime – it is worth remembering that America has a long history of mass detention camps. Among the most notorious were the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. ‘The Japanese race’, observed General John L DeWitt, head of the US Army’s Western Defense Command, and a key figure […]

Categories: International, Photos, Race & Immigration • Tags: concentration camps, dorothea lange, internment camps, japanese internment, linda gordon, mass detention, photography, racism, usa

SEEING WHAT WE WANT TO SEE

June 10, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how we often interpret the news through the lens of what we want to see, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 9 June 2019, under the headline ‘Fake news will thrive as long we are happy to see only what we want to see’. If a gorilla walked right in front of your eyes, you wouldn’t miss it, would you? Actually, half the country probably would. In a classic 1999 experiment, psychologists Christopher Chabris and […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Photos, Race & Immigration • Tags: assisted dying, central park five, christopher chabris, daniel simons, ethics, euthanasia, fake news, invisible gorilla experiment, noa pothoven, racism, usa, when they see us, wilding

WHO HAS THE RIGHT TO SPEAK?

May 31, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of a talk I gave at the Bristol Festival of Ideas, 21 May 2019, as part of the Coleridge Series. ‘Who has the right to speak?’ It is the key question in debates around free speech. Who should be allowed to speak? What should be permitted to be said? And who makes the decision? Historically, the issues were relatively clear. Censorship was imposed from the top. Its aim was to deflect, contain or deem illegitimate any […]

Categories: Free Speech, War on terror • Tags: anti-terror laws, blasphemy, censorship, corporate censorship, fake news, free speech, gill valentine, hate speech, incitement laws, iqbal sacranie, muslim, offence, prevent, racism, self-censorship, social media, tariq modood, universities

DANNY BAKER, RACISM AND PUNISHMENT

May 13, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate around Danny Baker’s racist tweet, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on why we need poetry.) It was published on 12 May 2019, under the headline ‘We thrive on provocation. But are we too quick to punish those who stray?’. There was something shocking and absurd about Danny Baker’s tweet of a photograph of a posh couple with a costumed monkey in response to the arrival of the royal baby. You […]

Categories: Free Speech, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: bbc, danny baker, punishment, racism, social media

TALKING IDENTITY IN AUSTRALIA

May 10, 2019 by Kenan Malik

These are audios of two events from my recent trip to Australia in which I discuss the politics of identity. The first is a talk I gave at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne. The second is a discussion on Melbourne’s community radio RRR. . What’s wrong with identity politics? A talk at the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne . Talking identity on RRR

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Kenan Malik, Politics • Tags: australia, herder, identity politics, immigration, immigration controls, left, racism, universalism, white identity, working class

WHEN THE RIGHT KIND OF MIGRANT IS STILL WRONG

April 15, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the reality of Australia’s points-based immigration system, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on cultural appropriation and cultural gatekeeping.) It was published on 14 April 2019, under the headline ‘A points-based system doesn’t end naked prejudice against migrants’. ‘How long have you been living in Australia?’ I asked the cabbie in Melbourne. Three years, he said. He’d come from India. ‘Do you like it here?’ I asked. No, he said. Why […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: australia, immigration, immigration policy, points based immigration system, racism

THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY, LEFT AND RIGHT

April 8, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the relationship between white nationalism and the politics of identity, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on ‘offshoring’ migration policies in Europe and Australia.) It was published on 7 April 2019, under the headline ‘If identity politics is a force for good, how does white nationalism fit in?’ ‘You turned the issue on its head’, someone said to me after I gave a talk on identity politics in Melbourne last week. […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: brenton tarrant, christchurch, counter enlightenment, enlightenment, far right, identity politics, left, racism, right, white identity, white nationalism

THE HISTORY AND POLITICS OF WHITE IDENTITY

March 16, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of a talk I gave to the Literarisches Colloqium Berlin on 5 March 2019. Identity politics is one of the defining – and one of the most divisive – issues of our age. And no identity is more contested or fought over than white identity. For some it is a means of giving voice to a group whose identity has previously been denied. For others it is simply as an expression of racism. The political context […]

Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: black identity, blumenbach, democracy, enlightenment, governor eyre, haitian revolution, herder, identity politics, immigration, immigration controls, imperialism, nouvelle droite, racial science, racism, universalism, white identity, working class

RUSHDIE’S MONSTERS

March 4, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, a review of the BBC documentary The Satanic Verses: 30 Years On, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the use of predictive algorithms by local authorities.) It was published in the Observer, 3 March 2019, under the headline ‘The Satanic Verses is still creating monsters, even new book-burners’. Sometimes, you just have to shake your head to clear it and look again. Did he really write that? So it was […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: bookburning, british politics, censorship, mobbed azhar, muslims, offence, racism, rushdie affair, salman rushdie, the satanic verses

ANTI-ZIONISM IS NOT (ALWAYS) ANTI-SEMITISM

February 25, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the relationship between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Einstein, science and philosophy.) It was published in the Observer, 24 February 2019, under the headline ‘Antisemites use the language of anti-Zionism. The two are distinct’. Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. So claimed France’s President Emmanuel Macron in a speech last week in which he promised to change policing regulations to criminalise anti-Zionism. The condemnation of anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism has a […]

Categories: International, Politics • Tags: anti-semitism, anti-zionism, civic nationalism, emmanuel macron, ethnic nationalism, israel, jews, labour party, left, nationalism, palestine, racism, tony judt, zionism

WHERE DOES THIS BULLY GET HIS IDEAS FROM?

December 3, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on an assault on a Syrian refugee schoolboy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the CRISPR baby). It was published in the Observer, 2 December 2018, under the headline ‘I know all about being bullied by racists. That’s the Britain I grew up in’. I cannot recall ever being ‘waterboarded’. But nor can I recall many days when, as a schoolboy, I did not return home without a bruised lip […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, hostile environment, immigration, racism, racist attacks, refugees, social media, theresa may, tobias ellwood

TERRIBLE CRIMES AND TAWDRY DEBATES

November 12, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Asian ‘grooming gangs’ and the debate about them,, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 11 November 2018, under the headline ‘We’re told 84% of grooming gangs are Asian. But where’s the evidence?’ Few debates about academic methodology result in a researcher being labelled a ‘posh socialist ‘activdemic’’ or another being told that her work is akin to a BNP leaflet. But this is no ordinary academic debate. It’s about Asian ‘grooming gangs’ and a report on the issue […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain • Tags: asian grooming gangs, britain, british asians, british muslims, ceop, child sexual exploitation, ella cockbain, grooming gangs, haras rafiq, islam, maajid nawaz, muna adil, nazir afzal, quilliam, racism

WHITE IDENTITY AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE

October 22, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Eric Kaufmann’s book Whitehift, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Turkish repression). It was published in the Observer, 21 October 2018, under the headline ‘White identity is meaningless. Real dignity is found in shared hopes’. ‘It’s dignity, stupid.’ Where once economic wellbeing was seen as key to winning electoral support, there is now recognition that more intangible qualities matter too – the ability to be heard, to live […]

Categories: Class, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-catholicism, demography, eric kaufmann, ethnic identity, ethnicity, identity politics, immigration, racism, white identity, white interests, whiteshift, working class

FROM EQUAL RIGHTS TO STAYING IN YOUR LANE

September 24, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on racial categories and social identities, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the Labour Party’s proposal to ban pregnant women from discovering the sex of their unborn child). It was published in the Observer, 23 September 2018, under the headline ‘Racial equality once meant tearing down barriers, not doing a DNA test’. Until about five years ago, Ralph Taylor did not consider himself black. He lived as a white […]

Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: ancestry, anti-racism, cultural appropriation, equality, genealogy, genetic testing, identity politics, race, racial categories, racism, stay in your lane

THE BIGOTRY AND THE SILENCE

August 20, 2018 by Kenan Malik

As I am away for a couple of weeks, and so am not posting new material on Pandaemonium. I am taking the opportunity to publish some of the shorter pieces from my Observer column that I don’t normally post here. This short piece, the last before normal service resumes on Pandaemonium, was published in the Observer on 24 June 2018 under the headline ‘Persecution of the Roma brings shame on Europe’. ‘The majority [of Roma] should be delivered back to the […]

Categories: Race & Immigration • Tags: france, italy, manuel valls, matteo salvini, racism, roma

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