Abstract
In a racial security state, Britain’s black and brown youth have been excluded from the national narrative. Construed as foreign, threatening, and alienated, young people of minority backgrounds have been the prime targets of the state’s counterterrorism legislation as well as surveillance, policing, and disciplining programs. At the same time, communities of color are among the most severely affected by austerity measures, suffering from the highest rates of unemployment, shoddy housing, cuts to public services, and closure of community centers. This article reveals how generational identity is tied to racial and class consciousness, dimensions rarely accounted for in the classical sociological work on generations. Shedding light on the mosaic of intersectional struggles, the article scrutinizes how activists of color, marginalized even within traditional leftist movements, carve out their own spaces of engagement, reclaim their terms of speaking, and forge wider alliances and solidarities. In doing so, they combine outward acts of resistance with inward-looking practices of self-affirmation, building community spaces, and preserving memories. Within these various avenues—ranging from university campuses to DIY festivals—young racialized activists depart from the language of civil rights and the politics of recognition, typical for the generation of their parents. Instead, young activists question the multiple exclusions on which citizenship relies, turn away from state projects, and articulate a radical, decolonial vision of social justice, not contained by the nation–state framework.
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