Tag: racism

FORMS OF BIGOTRY AND FORMS OF BLINDNESS

November 23, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the lessons of the Azeem Rafiq case, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 14 November 2021, under the headline “If tackling racism is just a box-ticking exercise, the urgent imperative to change our ways is lost”. For some, it was a gotcha moment. For others, an occasion to parade their own prejudices. Yet others celebrated the end of the “attempt to destroy English cricket”. On Tuesday, Azeem Rafiq gave devastating testimony to a parliamentary committee about the racism he had […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration, Sport • Tags: antisemtism, azeem rafiq, cricket, identity politics, jews, muslims, racism, rare earth mettle, royal court theatre, yorkshire cricket club

PESSIMISM, MISANTHROPY AND CHANGING THE WORLD

November 9, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the dangers of unthinking pessimism, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 7 November 2021, under the headline “Want to change the world? Then you’d better give up on self-defeating pessimism”. He quickly apologised for his crassness. But the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comparison of politicians who fail to tackle climate change with those in the 1930s who appeased the Nazis was not simply crass. It illustrated how many imagine that the best means of arousing political concern is […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: afropessmism, anti-natalism, archbishop of canterbury, climate change, david benatar, extinction rebellion, frank wilderson, global warming, john gray, jonathan frantzen, justin welby, left, misanthropy, pessimism, racism, roger hallam, ta-nehisi coates

THE POLITICS OF REBRANDING

November 2, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how politics and social activism have too often become exercises in rebranding not material change, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 31 October 2021, under the headline “You can’t escape your past by changing your name, as Mark Zuckerberg will discover”. It’s easy to mock the Corporation Formerly Known As Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Facebook would henceforth be Meta, and his attempt to swerve the intensifying assault on his company’s sordid activities with a nifty […]

Categories: History, Politics • Tags: cultural recognition, david hume, edward colston, facebook, imperial college, mark zuckerberg, meta, racism, rebranding, thomas huxley, thomas jefferson, william gladstone, winston churchill

THE MAGICAL QUALITY OF WHITENESS

September 7, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on immigration, identity and the obsession with whiteness, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 5 September 2021, under the headline “To be truly British, the country needs to stay largely white. Really, Lionel Shriver?” “They have seen the passing of the American Indian and the buffalo; and now they query as to how long the Anglo-Saxon may be able to survive.” So wrote William Ripley in an essay for the Atlantic Monthly in 1908. Ripley was one of […]

Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: britishness, conservatism, douglas murray, identity politics, immigration, lionel shriver, racism, white decline, white identity, whiteness, william ripley

INEQUALITY AND THE POLITICS OF DIVISION

July 20, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the violence n South Africa, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the GB News debacle) It was published on 18 July 2021, under the headline “Gross inequality stoked the violence in South Africa. It’s a warning to us all”. “It feels qualitatively different this time.” There are few people I know in South Africa who don’t think this about the carnage now engulfing the nation. Violence was institutionalised during the years of apartheid. […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: anc, apartheid, corruption, covid 19, economic freedom fighters, identity politics, inequality, jacob zuma, police killings, poverty, racism, sectarianism, south africa

ON BEING A 90-MINUTE ENGLISHMAN

July 7, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on football and Englishness, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 4 July 2021, under the headline “I love the football team but can’t get tribal about England. What’s going on?” Yes, I shouted with joy when Raheem Sterling scored against Germany last week. I would have been equally joyful had he scored against Scotland. And when India play England in a Test series next month, I will be rooting for England, not for the country of my birth. […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Sport • Tags: britishness, england, englishness, eric hobsbawm, football, identity, john denham, nationalism, racism, roger scruton, sport, sunder katwala, tebbit test

SPORT, POLITICS AND TAKING THE KNEE

June 16, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the debate over taking the knee, and the relationship between sport and politics, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 13 June 2021, under the headline “We need to separate sport and politics. But also recognise that they’re inseparable”. “Fans don’t want politics brought into football.” Many would agree with Tory MP Lee Anderson’s sentiment. And so, he carried on, in response to England footballers “taking the knee” before a match: “For the first time in […]

Categories: Politics, Sport • Tags: black lives matter, colin kaepernick, culture wars, englishness, football, lee anderson, muhammad ali, patriotism, racism, taking the knee, wilfried zaha

THE BIGOTRY OF RACE NORMING

June 6, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This is a (very) short piece on the practice of “race norming” that was published as part of my Observer column, 6 June 2021. It is an important issue, and I will hopefully write a longer article on this issue soon. The NFL, American football’s professional league, is to abandon the practice of “race norming” in assessing compensation for former players with brain injuries. It’s the assumption that black players have lower cognitive functioning than white ones, an assumption that made […]

Categories: Race & Immigration, Sport • Tags: affirmative action, american football, race norming, racism, usa

A SHARED FUTURE FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA

May 25, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on cancel culture and hypocrisy.) It was published on 23 May 2021, under the headline “From the river to the sea, Jews and Arabs must forge a shared future”. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, runs a Palestinian slogan. Originally a call for a secular state in historic Palestine between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean, it soon […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: anti-semitism, anti-zionism, benjamin netanyahu, bernard lazare, gaza, hamas, israel, jerusalem, likud, palestine, racism, sheikh jarrah, tony judt, west bank, zionism

POLICING INEQUALITIES OF RACE AND CLASS

April 27, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the nature of American policing, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on a breakthrough vaccine for malaria.) It was published on 25 April 2021, under the headline “US policing is far less about fighting crime than controlling the poor”. ‘Lower-class culture is pathological.” So claimed American political scientist Edward Banfield in his 1970 book The Unheavenly City. For Banfield, unlike the middle class, “the lower-class person lives from moment to moment… unable […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: 1033 programme, broken windows policy, derek chauvin, edward banfield, george floyd, james quinn wilson, mass incarceration, militarised policing, police killings, policing, poor, racism, thomas sowell, usa, william bratton

SO, WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE SEWELL REPORT?

April 6, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 4 April 2021, under the headline “Yes, we need a more nuanced debate about race. But this flawed report fails to deliver it”. Britain is less racist than it was 40 years ago. Many minority groups in Britain still face racism. Both those claims can be (and are) true. So are these two claims: racism exists in Britain; racism […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-racism, race and class, racial disparities, racism, sewell report, tony sewell

TO LIVE IN A PLURAL SOCIETY

March 30, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the meaning of a plural society in the context of the furore surrounding Batley Grammar School, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the lessons of the Shrewsbury 24.) It was published on 28 March 2021, under the headline “To live in a diverse society means to live with debate. Bring it on”. No one has a right not to be offended. All of us have a duty to challenge bigotry. These […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Multiculturalism • Tags: batley grammar school, blasphemy, charlie hebdo, depicting muhammad, diversity, education, islam, islamophobia, muhammad, muslims, racism, samuel paty, sayeeda warsi

RACISM, PRIVILEGE AND ANTI-ASIAN HOSTILITY

March 23, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on anti-Asian racism in America, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on flag, queen and country.) It was published on 21 March 2021, under the headline “Myths of Asian privilege fuel a brutal and cartoonish bigotry”. Beyond the horror of the shooting in Atlanta of eight people, six of them Asian women, lies the fraught question “why?”. In all probability, a multitude of factors – racism, misogyny, religious belief, personal inadequacies – coalesced in suspect […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: affirmative action, anti-asian racism, anti-racism, asian privilege, atlanta shootings, harvard, identity politics, model community, privilege, racism, usa, yale, yellow peril

TRANSLATION AND IDENTITY

March 9, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the debate over the translation of Amanda Gorman’s poetry, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the Home Office’s inflexibility over British citizenship.) It was published on 7 March 2021, under the headline “Lost in translation: the dead end of dividing the world on identity lines”. In 1768, the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder paid a visit to the French city of Nantes. “I am getting to know the French language […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Language, Multiculturalism, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: amanda gorman, identity politics, invisible man, marieke lucas rijneveld, racism, ralph ellison, stay in your lane, translation

INEQUALITY AND POLITICAL DIVIDES

March 3, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on perceptions of inequality in Britain, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 28 February 2021, under the headline “The left/right divide still exists. But it’s struggling to escape the lure of identity politics”. First, the good news. Britons see inequality as a major problem and divide broadly along traditional political lines in their attitudes towards it. Then, the bad news. Britons are also inclined to see inequalities as driven by individual behaviour as much as […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: bobby duffy, brexit, british politics, conservative party, covid 19, identity politics, individualism, inequality, labour party, pandemic, racism, reluctant individualism