Abstract
Racialisation is a Marxist concept that has been utilised to understand racism patterns and reproduction in Western societies for more than three decades. In Marxist parlance, racialisation is the ideological process through which the state racialised a section of the population (ethnic minorities) for political purposes. The centrality of the state in racialisation discourse has inhibited the class basis that underpins racialisation. This article articulates the class analysis of racialisation, positing that racialisation stems from racism ideology that the Western ruling class utilised to divide the people along the ethnic line as a means of preserving and maintaining ruling class influence and prestige in society and protecting the capitalist system from being challenged by the unity of the people along the class line. Racialisation is utilised to reproduce racism, using media, laws, regulations and institutional practices to entrench division and disunity in society and preserve their control system under capitalism. In discussing the future of racism, this article critiques the current anti-racism campaign/movement founded and rooted in race discourse and race consciousness and argues that a shift from race consciousness to racialised consciousness is pivotal towards deconstruction and eradicating all vestiges of racism in the global society. The article concludes that racialised consciousness would act as a political unifier in anti-racism campaigns and connects the struggles of Black working and middle class with that of the White working and middle class in terms of collaboration and solidarity, to collectively challenge the capitalist system that is responsible for oppression, inequality and racism on class lines.
Introduction
The ruling class in the capitalist epoch is more interested in a united country, but divided people.
Racialisation is one of the conceptual frameworks articulated to analyse and study racism in the sociology of racism and ethnicity in the past 40 years. Following its articulation in the 1970s, the study of racialisation has proliferated, as scholars have utilised the framework to understand racism patterns and processes and their impacts in contemporary Western society (Baber 2010; Barot & Bird 2001; Hochman 2019; Murji & Solomos 2005). Historically, racialisation was first discussed in the work of Banton (1977), who did not study the concept in its own right but espoused it while explaining and analysing the immigration policy of the British state since the end of the Second World War. Robert Miles expanded the concept to provide a Marxist contribution to the analysis of racism and migration (Miles 1982, 1987, 1989, 1993; Miles & Brown 2003). Miles (1982, 1987) argued that radicalisation is an ideological process where migrant labour is racialised through state actions and policies, using a mode of production framework. While racialisation was defined as a ‘dialectical process by which meaning is attributed to particular biological features of human beings, as a result of which individuals may be assigned to a general category of persons which reproduces itself biologically’ (Miles 1989: 76), Miles deconstructed the notion of race and race-relations paradigm in sociological discourse. The concept of racism replaced it as an analytical framework to understand discrimination, marginalisation and the legitimation of exclusionary practices against Blacks and ethnic minorities across cultural, social, economic and political spheres in Western society. The important insight in Miles’ work is the culpability and centrality of the state (i.e. the British state) as the agent of racialisation against Blacks and other new Commonwealth immigrants. Indeed, Miles’ definition was shared and expanded by Cole (2009b, 2009d, 2009e, 2016, 2020). Miles and Cole’s articulation of racialisation stems from the mode of production framework, a variant of Marxism utilised to demonstrate how capitalism has been central in the discourse of racialisation. However, many years have passed since the concept of racialisation was espoused. The contemporary issues of housing, unemployment, crime and policing, education, immigration and refugees, and other sectors where racism is covert and evident now, far outweighed the racialisation concern from the 1970s to the 1990s. The limitation in these Marxist and non-Marxist studies is the side-stepping of the class issue within the analysis of racialisation. This lacuna is what this article seeks to address by articulating a class analysis of racialisation.
While I agree with Miles and Cole that racialisation is an ideological process, the purpose is not only to provide a racialised labour force to maintain capitalist structures but to divide the people along the ethnic line as a way of preserving and maintaining the influence and prestige of the ruling class in society and protect the capitalist system from being challenged by the unity of the people along the class line. This article thus helps to expand my previous work on racialisation (Ogunrotifa, forthcoming) by deepening the neo-Marxist analysis and understanding of racism in contemporary Western society.
To situate this article further, the class understanding of racialisation starts with the notion of racism as an ideology and provides a significant impetus to unpack the class basis of racialisation. Then, the article discusses the anti-racism movement and the future of racism by discussing race consciousness and racialised consciousness, following which the article concludes.
Racism as an ideology
The class analysis of racialisation starts with the idea that racism is an ideology that is characterised by its content, as espoused by Miles and Brown (2003). These authors contend that the content of racism ‘asserts that or assumes the existence of separate and discrete races and attributes a negative evaluation of one or some of these putative races’ (Miles & Brown 2003: 84). In other words, the ideology of racism stems from the notion of race or racial theory developed by scientists in the 18th century. The question of who makes and utilises this content as ideology or who ideologised this content is a missing gap in Miles and Brown’s articulation. The race discourse is derived from the general race theory of the 18th and 19th centuries by biologists and scientists, who categorised people into distinct ‘races’ based on anatomical or phenotypical characteristics. With racial theory, individuals are racially classified, and these biological characteristics are presented as the explanation for their social behaviour, cultural orientations and historical development (Banton 1991).
Furthermore, the logic of race discourse depicts that once an individual is racially classified, their genetic attributes are invoked to explain their social behaviour. Following the racial theorists, scientists and philosophers constructed a racial hierarchy in the 18th and 19th centuries and placed the White ‘race’ at the pinnacle of civilisation and culture. In this sense, the White ‘race’ was regarded as the yardstick of the standard race with the highest achievement to which other ‘races’ (who are considered subspecies and subhuman) should emulate and aspire to become (Webster 1993). Therefore, the inferiority and superiority of ‘races’ was the outcome of the biological racial theory.
Moreover, this scientific categorisation of people into distinct races laid the basis for the ideological foundation of racism that depended upon race categorisation in the capitalist era. The European ruling class hijacked and exploited the biological categorisation of races as an ideology to justify the enslavement of Africans and the attendant genocide, conquest and war that followed the colonialisation and imperialism of native people in Africa, Asia, America and Australasia as ‘inferior races’. The biological categorisation of inferiority and superiority provided a legal and moral basis for the early American ruling class to justify slavery in the United States, as Webster (1993: 41) noted: The science of Zoology by the Zoologist Carl Linnaeus took early American statemen by storm. The notion of subspecies provided a natural justification for slavery. The negro was a justifiable ‘species’ of a property. His ‘savagery’ cleared the conscience of the framers of the American Declaration of Independence and the signatories of the American Constitution. They could keep slaves in the ‘prison camps’ called plantations and simultaneously demand their own freedom from British ‘tyranny’. Slavery was the negro’s fault, an effect of a ‘Negro nature’. (Webster 1993: 41)
Webster’s observation provided helpful insight. It revealed that early American statesmen were part of the American ruling class, with substantive ownership of slaves. For instance, American presidents such as Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Johnson, James Madison, James Monroe, George Washington and others, were all slave owners. Therefore, race theory constituted the ideology of racism for the early American ruling class to justify continued slavery, even after the American Independence in 1776. Racism is an ideology of the ruling class. The racial theory was transformed into an ideological category and tool by the ruling class and the state to justify Black slavery in the southern states of America, Jim Crow law and segregationism, and Jewish pogrom and genocide in Nazi Germany.
Indeed, for more than two centuries, the ideology of racism has been instituted by the Western ruling class, and such ideology has not only been instilled and ingrained in the state and social institutions but has permeated every facet of everyday life and the psychologies of the people. Because of the prestigious role that science played, the entire Western society embraces the racial classification of Black, White, Indian and others, without questioning the logical status underpinning those classifications. It is this racist ideology that breeds a racially conscious population and dominates official, state and social institutional practices, policy and procedures in Western society (Miles 1993).
By the 1930s and 1940s, the influence of racial theory began to wane as social scientists and philosophers challenged, critiqued and questioned the analytical value of race as an explanatory concept. Prominent studies in this domain include Huxley and Haddon (1935), Barzun (1938, 1965); Montagu (1972). These studies conclude that racial theory is a pseudo-science with no evidential basis to sustain its racial classifications. Meanwhile, further insight from these studies revealed that ‘races’ do not exist, a racial theory is invalid and illogical and that the notion of ‘race’ should be expunged from scientific vocabulary and replaced with ‘ethnic group’. In furtherance of these critiques, Webster (1993) added that ‘races’ are never items in nature that can be observed with the naked eyes but a product of classification and construction undertaken by observers (biologists). Racial classification is, thus, socially constructed by the biologists based on their imagination and social reality and has nothing to do with the phenotypical characteristics or biological facts. ‘Races’, therefore, are socially imagined and rooted in the imagination of biologists.
Following the pogrom and genocide of Jewish people (as inferior race and alien) by Hitler and the Nazi regime in Germany, UNESCO inaugurated a panel of scientists in the 1950s and 1960s to evaluate the scientific evidence on race and racism (Miles & Brown 2003). The UNESCO panel dismissed the nexus between race and racism and concluded that there was no scientific basis for arranging groups hierarchically in terms of physiological and cultural characteristics (Montagu 1972). The conclusion of the UNESCO panel laid the foundation for discrediting and deconstructing ‘race’ as an analytical framework in social science discourses. Despite being discredited as an analytical framework, some philosophers and social scientists hold tenaciously onto the notion of race as the basis of oppression in Western society. This position is more profound among critical race theorists and Black radical scholars, who prioritise race rather than a class in their explanation and understanding of racism. Literary and theoretical influences mean that race is considered as the determinant of social relations and life chances among the Black communities in Europe and America. It implies that these scholars are culpable in legitimising racism by endorsing the ideology of distinct races in scientific discourses through research to justify the race discourse. The disagreement among philosophers and social scientists about the analytical status of ‘race’ has further emboldened the Western ruling class to continue to utilise the ideology of racism to deepen the existing division and foster disunity among ethnic groups in society as a way of preventing capitalism from being challenged along the class line. This reality was observed by Webster (1993: 27), who argued that the ruling class invests heavily in race discourse as a way of entrenching the ideology of racism: The racial theory for contemporary social studies is supported by foundations and corporations, which invest comparatively vast sums of money in research on the experiences of racial and ethnic groups. Given this financial backing, social scientists are able to ply government, media, and citizens with an abundance of racial data.
The investment of the ruling class in racism is to entrench further and institutionalise the race discourse to legitimise their exclusionary practices through the preservation of the racial classification of individuals, social phenomena and experiences. Investment in racism by the ruling class ensures that racialised Black and other ethnic minorities remain in the state of what Miles and Brown (2003: 6) regarded as ‘race consciousness’ rather than ‘racialised consciousness’. Here, poverty experienced by Inner City Blacks in London or Chicago could be attributed to their race rather than the capitalist system, which requires poverty at one end to maintain the system. By having a race consciousness, the Black and other ethnic minorities will always believe that their predicaments stem from their race rather than the capitalist system that sustains racism. By prioritising the race discourse, the critical race theorists, Black radical scholars and philosophers and other social scientists who defended the race paradigm are, by implication, supporting the narratives of the ruling class that race is responsible for the poverty, institutional inequality and marginalisation experienced by the Black and ethnic minorities. In this sense, clinging to race discourse serves a political purpose of conserving and sustaining the capitalist status quo. Conclusively, as racist ideology is derived from the scientific theory of racial classification, such classification was utilised by the Western ruling class as an ideology to deepen existing division and create disunity among different ethnic groups, to protect and preserve the capitalist status quo from being challenged by the people along the class line. It is this ideology of racism that leads to the racialisation of social relations and everyday life. This article now discusses the class basis of racialisation.
The class basis of racialisation
In the contemporary epoch, explicit reference to ‘distinct races’, inferiority and superiority are very rare, especially in the public domain, as overt racism and the use of racist language are seen as immoral, inhumane and condemnable in everyday life and interactions. If racism is not overtly practised, why then is racism rife in Western society? The answer to this question is that the ruling class has devised other strategies of perpetuating racism or making racism invisible to the people/public, and this strategy is what Banton (1977) and Miles (1982) regarded as ‘racialisation’. The nexus between racism and racialisation is that racism is an ideology upon which racialisation is activated in society’s economic, social, cultural and political spheres. Racialisation is the basis of racism, and racism is one of the ideologies of the ruling class. Therefore, the ruling class utilises racialisation to perpetuate racism in all aspects of people’s social, cultural, national and institutional lives. The vital way to understand racism in the contemporary era is through racialisation. Miles (1989: 76) defines racialisation as a: dialectical process by which meaning is attributed to particular biological features of human beings, as a result of which individuals may be assigned to a general category of persons which reproduces itself biologically … The process of the racialisation of human beings entails the racialization of the processes in which they participate and the structures and institutions that result.
In earlier studies of immigration from 1945 to the 1970s in Britain, Miles (1982) argued that the British state racialised against a section of the working class through state actions and policies. This position was subsequently supported by Carter et al. (1993) and Carter and Green (1996), Solomos (1989, 1993); Paul (1997) and Cole (2009a, 2009b, 2009c, 2009d, 2009e, 2016, 2020), who posited that the British state under the Conservative government of 1951–1965 was the agent of racialisation, which racialised against the new Commonwealth immigrants as a way of legitimising exclusionary practices in the United Kingdom.
The application of racialisation has proliferated since Miles’ seminal work, as scholars have utilised the concept to articulate a wide range of racist practices in everyday and social life (Baber 2010, 2021; Barot & Bird 2001; Blum 2002; Bradley 1996; Darder & Torres 2003; Fulcher & Scott 2003; Goldberg 1993; Hesse 1997; Hochman 2019; Holdaway 1996; Malik 1996; Murji & Solomos 2005; Peterson 2020; Rattansi 2005; Small 1994; Webster 1993; Winant 1994; Wolfe 2002). These non-Marxist studies on racialisation have demonstrated that racialisation is a multidimensional concept, theory and perspective, whose applicability varies from case to case and context to context.
Certainly, the question of who racialises who and for what purposes are concrete questions in the Marxist analysis of racism. Using a mode of production framework, a variant of Marxism, Miles argued that the state (British state) is the agent of racialisation and racialises ethnic minorities for political purposes. What is lacking in Miles’ articulation is the class shaping of racialisation. More profoundly, the ruling class’s role in the state policy in terms of racialisation is undocumented. However, Miles (1982: 117) attempted linking racism with class ideology by demonstrating that racism was not: the specific or purposive creation of the bourgeoisie but was generated on a terrain structured by the development of the capitalist mode of production and appropriated by at least certain fractions of that bourgeoisie, so that ideology became a central element of its worldview by the nineteenth century.
While I agree with Miles that the ruling class (bourgeoisie) did not create racism, they adopted the racial theory as their racist ideology and deployed it to control and dominate the society, maintain control and shape the fundamental objectives of state policy.
Furthermore, the ruling class exploited the division in society along the ethnic line. It used racism to deepen the existing societal division using different tactics like media, sponsoring research, using experts and think tanks, and employing laws, regulations and policies. In the seminal work of Antonio Gramsci (1971), Gramsci argued that the ruling class legitimate their rulership and leadership of the society through a mixture of consent and force, and they guarantee that they retain control of the society by making their rule legitimate and appear as common sense to the people.
Miles did not connect racism as the ideology of the ruling class with that of the state policy and therefore failed to understand the ideologies of the ruling class in which racism translates into state or public policy or shapes the fundamental objectives of the state policy in Western society. In the Marxist tradition, class in a capitalist society, divided into the ruling class (capitalist elites), the middle class, the working class and the underclass, are fundamental towards understanding the connection between class relations and racism. Capitalism, by its nature, is divisive and discriminatory because it creates a dichotomy between workers and bosses; Black workers and White workers, and immigrant workers versus local workers. It creates a wage differential between men and women, White and other ethnic minorities doing a similar job, promoting one set of workers above others.
The capitalist social relation is founded and rooted in discrimination. The capitalist ruling class is fully aware of the central problem of capitalism, which is the antagonism between wage labour and capital, and it always strives to sow division among the working people using the old tactic of divide and rule. It is undertaken by dividing the working class and turning people against another using racism, nationalism, gender, sexuality and religion to divert attention from the class struggle between exploiters and exploited, rich and poor. Racism is one of the methods used by the ruling class in Western capitalist society to entrench division by racialising the White people against Black and other ethnic minorities through different tactics and methods. It takes advantage of the fault-line of ethnic division to prevent the unity of the classes so that they would not unite and challenge capitalism and their control as a class. To demonstrate this more profoundly, racialisation policies undertaken by the Conservative governments since the end of the Second World War will be espoused as potentially useful cases, thereby making it possible to develop a robust explanation on racism, through the class analysis of racialisation in Western societies.
Racialisation policies pursued Conservative governments in post-War epoch
The class context of racialisation, which is central to the understanding of racism as an ideology of the ruling class, finds its expression in the policies of the Conservative government since the end of the Second World War. The observation of Carter et al. (1987: 335) is particularly salient towards understanding how racism as an ideology of the ruling class is fundamental in shaping the racialisation policy of the British state in the 1950s and 1960s: The problem of colonial migration has not yet aroused public anxiety … [But] if immigration from the colonies, and, for that matter from India and Pakistan, were allowed to continue unchecked, there is a real danger that over the years there would be a significant change in the racial character of the English people.
The above commentary formed the Minute of the Cabinet Meeting of the British government held on 3 November 1955, which Carter and his colleagues cited verbatim. The Minute revealed the racist agenda of the ruling class members in government, which was rooted in the racist ideology. It was this ideology of racism that led to the passing of the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act. The Act ended ‘the automatic right of people of the British Commonwealth and colonies to settle in the United Kingdom who were overwhelmingly Blacks and Asians’ (McKay 2008). The Act’s critics had argued that ‘the legislation was racist in intent because some of those responsible wished to maintain the racial homogeneity of the existing population’ (Banton 2005: 63).
Further evidence by Michael Banton revealed that a Conservative Minister (William Deedee at the time) acknowledged that the ‘real purpose of the Act was to restrict the influx of coloured Immigrants’ (Banton 2005: 65). This Conservative Minister’s expression highlights the concern of the British ruling class and the state institutions under its control about the need for the state policy on the racialisation of immigrants. Therefore, the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act was passed by a Conservative government (a pro-business party and a section of the British ruling class) to racialise Black and Asian immigrants as the problem, using law, policy and regulation to protect the British racial character of Whiteness (Rattansi 2005).
Hence, the ruling class uses racism as a weapon of furthering division and disunity among the people, especially the working class, and racialisation is the process through which racism is weaponised. Moreover, racialisation aims to preserve their control of society and prevent capitalism from being challenged by the unity of people (of different ethnic groups) along the class line. The ruling class’s racialisation of Blacks and other ethnic minorities is undertaken as a part of the agenda of fostering disunity with the White population on a class basis and preventing attempts at challenging them as a class.
Racialisation here is defined as: an ideological process that involves racialising benefits, privileges, and opportunities to one group [possibly an ethnic group] over other groups by the capitalist ruling class and the state, and legitimising it by using policies, media, laws, regulations, and institutional practices as a means of entrenching division and disunity in the society and preserving their system of control under capitalism. (Ogunrotifa 2022: 240)
This definition illustrates the class basis of racialisation and expands its frontier beyond the mode of production framework articulated by Miles and Cole. The class underpinning of racialisation is that the ruling class, especially in Western society, racialises a section of working people, especially minorities, to maintain, preserve and sustain the capitalist status quo. Racialisation is, thus, fundamental to the survival of capitalism as a socio-economic system. The process of racialisation occurs when the ruling class activates racist ideology to legitimate exclusionary practices to protect their class rule and the capitalist system, using policies, media, laws, regulations and institutional practices.
As overt references to inferiority, superiority, distinct races and racial hierarchy are rare in the contemporary era, racism is still practised through racialisation. Indeed, racialisation occurs when enacted policies, laws and regulations have been overtly and covertly racist because it is used to legitimate exclusionary practices and racialisation against sections of the population. For instance, the analysis of the austerity budget implemented by the Conservative government from 2010 has revealed that the cumulative effect of tax and benefit changes since 2010 has made BAME women emerge worse hit and the poorest Black and Asian women some £2,000 worse off, while the wealthiest people were slightly better off (Khan & Shaheen 2017; Women’s Budget Group 2016). The budget presented by the then UK Chancellor (George Osborne) did not refer to race or BAME. A policy, law and regulation do not need to refer to a biological theory of inferiority and superiority to be a racist policy, and anyone who seeks to see a policy, law and regulation as a reference to race would never see one as far as the current public policy is concerned.
The Conservative austerity was initiated to rescue British capitalism from its organic crisis following the global financial crisis of 2009–2010. Nevertheless, if we analyse the political and ideological contexts of such policies like the Conservative austerity budget, we uncover the wide reproduction of racialised representation of certain sections of the population. The modern expressivity of racism and exclusionary practices are covert, hidden and disguised, as the mechanism of exclusion and racialisation are concealed in any policy, law and regulation. However, the political and ideological contexts of such policies and laws are racist in their articulation.
However, critics of Miles’ position had argued that the state’s role in racialising the immigration issue is widely exaggerated, as ‘the role of public hostility, housing shortages and other local pressures, a lingering attachment to empire in the Conservative party, Commonwealth ideals in the Labour party and Commonwealth states’ are unconsidered (Hansen 2000: 13). This position was supported by Banton (1983a, 1983b, 2005). However, Hansen’s critique has further supported my overall argument about the class underpinning of racialisation, which exposes the culpability of the British ruling class and the state institutions under its control.
Available evidence revealed that the post-war recovery of the British economy was undertaken by immigrants who were primarily nurses, manual labour and other workers in unskilled occupations (Miles 1982; Banton 1983a). In comparison to other Western European countries, Geiger (2017: 1) observed that British post-war recovery experienced a slower rate of economic growth, as British capitalism experienced an organic crisis prior to the passing of the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act: Many accounts of British development since 1945 are directed at finding an explanation for the slower economic growth rate which Britain experienced compared to that of other western European countries. In this context, some analysts have attributed the slower economic growth to the relatively high British defence expenditures. These accounts reflect two empirical observations: firstly, Britain spent more on defence than other countries and secondly, the British economy grew less rapidly than other Western economies. The implication of these analyses is that Britain’s relative economic decline could have been prevented if policymakers had not spent so much on defence.
Geiger’s crisis of British capitalism was the overarching problem for the British ruling class and the state under its control in the post-war era. Racialisation was activated by the ruling class using state apparatus to legitimate exclusionary practices to protect their class rule and the scrutiny of the capitalist system at a time when socialism was at its ascendancy during the Cold War. It deflected and distracted the public’s attention from the economic decline and prevented questioning of capitalism. The economic effects of the crisis of British capitalism translated into political consequences for the ruling class and the state under the Conservative regime, whose reaction to the problems was expressed through racialisation that objectified Blacks and Asian Immigrants as undesirable, problematic and a cause of the crisis. With the racialised Immigration Act, the impression that the British state and the ruling class gave was that such legislation is necessary to stop job competition between the White population and Immigrants. Contrastingly, and in reality, the Act smoke-screened the British ruling class from being challenged as a class by the working people over the crisis of capitalism under their control.
Geiger’s finding further revealed that British capitalism was weaker than in the pre-war era despite the recovery. Due to the fragile nature of the economic recovery, British capitalism could not afford substantial social spending in the post-war era. The inability of the British capitalist state and its capitalist ruling class to provide housing and other social welfare provisions fuelled public discontent. The ‘other local pressure’ that Hansen observed (Hansen 2000: 13) is what Banton (2005) regarded as unemployment and local social services. In this regard, British capitalism could not provide full employment and address the housing shortage and inadequate local social services funding to cater to the increasing population following the influx of immigrants to the United Kingdom.
The public hostility of the White British population was not towards immigration as Hansen interpreted, but against housing shortages, unemployment and lack of funding for local social services. Hansen’s claim that public hostility was expressed through riots in urban centres is grossly exaggerated. It is because the contemporary events have demonstrated that anti-immigrants’ rhetoric and protests are fuelled by the far-right/fascists and conservative groups, who are an insignificant proportion of the population. It depicts that the riots could not have occurred without the active involvement of the White underclass, the working class and sections of the middle class, who were discontented and disenchanted about the fundamental crisis of capitalism – housing shortages, unemployment and cuts in funding for social services.
The arrival of Black and Asian immigrants opened up the organic crisis of British capitalism and exposed the incompetence of the British ruling class and the state in solving the housing problem. Miles and Brown’s (2003: 106) observation revealed that the British economy was already in crisis following the decline of capitalist production and the decay of the urban infrastructure (including housing), starting from the 1950s: In many areas of working-class residence in Britain, the decline of capitalist production and the decay of the urban infrastructure (consequences of uneven development of capitalism) coincided temporarily with the arrival and settlement of migrants from the Caribbean and Asian continents during the 1950s and 1960s.
The decay in the urban infrastructure caused the public’s resentment towards local social services provision and culminated in increasing pressure from the White population, especially the working class and the middle class, about the funding cut and the low quality of local services. The British ruling class and state felt the public discontent and wanted to avoid the scrutiny and questioning of capitalism’s failure. Thus, they resorted to blaming the Black and Asian immigrants for housing shortages and unemployment of the White population through the media. The intention was to distract people’s attention away from the capitalism failures and protect the system from being challenged. Therefore, the Commonwealth Immigration Act 1962 was passed by a Conservative government (a pro-business party and a section of the British ruling class) to racialise Black and Asian immigrants as the problem, using law, policy and regulation to protect the British racial character of Whiteness (Rattansi 2005).
The case presented here has demonstrated that the aims of racialisation according to the ruling class are (1) to maintain their relevance and social/political base among the far-right and fascist element of the society; (2) to preserve their power, privileges, prestige and control among the White population in the society; and (3) to prevent the unity of the working class and middle class (Black, White and other ethnic minorities) from challenging class oppression and exploitation of the capitalist system.
Racialisation is not a one-off process; instead, it is a process through which racialised groups are constantly and consistently re-racialised through different methods and tactics by the ruling class vis-a-vis state institutions, media and other socio-cultural institutions. It is a weapon used by the capitalist ruling class and its allies in government and other institutions to deepen racism and prevent the unity of the people in challenging capitalism that has not been favourable to their lives. To challenge capitalism is to challenge the system of control of the capitalist ruling class over the economy, policy, culture, religion, police and criminal justice system, and other societal institutions. To preserve their control and power and the capitalist status quo, the ruling class uses racism in all institutions of Western society to maintain their hold on the society by racialising one ethnic group against another to prevent class unity. The ruling class employs racialisation in policies to pacify the majority White population. It gives them the impression that they are actually ‘better’ than the Blacks and other minorities and that there is no alternative to capitalism that has been beneficial to their development over four centuries.
Cole’s argument that racialisation is geographically and historically specific (Cole 2009b) is particularly salient, but the pattern of racialisation and the underlying interests behind it has not changed. From 1962 to date, the pattern of racialisation is still the same, given the role of the ruling class and state in racialising the sections of the working class to prevent the unity of the classes to challenge capitalism for its manifest failure. For instance, the use of ID cards and voters’ registration laws in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia in recent times has further demonstrated continued racialisation in Western society. Following the defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential elections, the states of Arizona, Georgia, Texas, Florida and over 30 other states had enacted voting laws that made it difficult for minorities to vote in future elections. Although no reference was made to Blacks, Latinos, Asians or Muslims in the legislation, the political and ideological contexts of the legislation put a burden on minorities to participate in democratic processes.
This racialisation of voting is the latest attempt at gerrymandering and reducing the voting strength of minorities. The preservation of the voting strength of the White population is the secondary motive, while the primary motive of the American ruling class is to protect their class and capitalist interest. Also, they safeguarded their ability to continue to control and shape the state policies on taxation and climate change and guaranteed businesses’ deregulatory regimes by electing their allies in states and national offices in the legislature and executive capacities. By giving the White population enormous voting strength, the American ruling class deepens the existing divisions in the society to protect its capitalist interest.
Similarly, both the Australian and UK governments have introduced voter ID laws to ‘strengthen’ the voting credibility of their respective countries. In truth, this is a racialisation of voting against Indigenous Australians (Aboriginals/First Nation) and the BAME community in the United Kingdom, who do not have any form of identification. This act of voter suppression is clearly orchestrated to legitimate practices of excluding a section of the population from the democratic processes. The ruling class in both contexts is not enacting these laws to reduce the voting strength of the section of the population only but to prevent the affected population section from electing candidates that will likely oppose their agenda and interests in parliament. From this perspective, the purpose is to elect their allies to parliament and other government offices to promote their class interest and permit them to continue moulding state policies.
Other areas where racialisation is occurring can be seen in terms of the vast gap or considerable differences between the Whites and the minority ethnic groups, in a whole range of areas such as housing, employment, occupation, education, health and social deprivation (Li 2017; Li & Heath 2008). These advantages, benefits and privileges apportioned to the White people are not because of the benevolence and generosity of the British ruling class. They need to create an artificial division and prevent the unity of classes, irrespective of their ethnicity, from challenging the ruling and the capitalist system as a class. The British ruling class is aware that the middle and working class of Black and other ethnic minorities are minorities and do not possess sufficient political force as a class to contest their rulership on racism and other exclusionary practices. They would require White working class and White middle class collaboration and solidarity to confront capitalist bosses for collective pay, improved working conditions and a share of the surplus-value or profits produced.
In sum, racialisation is the ideological process through which racism is perpetuated and sustained by the ruling class in society. It is expressed in racialising advantages, benefits and privileges to the White population against Black and other ethnic minorities. This action creates unequal relations that could prevent unity and solidarity across ethnic groups on the class line, threatening the future of capitalism as a system and their rulership as a class. The expansion of racialisation beyond Miles and Cole’s articulation in this article has helped uncover how the ruling class used the ideology of racism to sustain their class rule by exploiting the existing division in the society to foster disunity for capitalistic purposes. Unless capitalism is deconstructed and overthrown, the racialisation process that sustains racism in Western society will perpetuate unabated.
This class analysis of racialisation has refuted and debunked the positions of Robinson (1983), Crenshaw et al. (1995), Mills (2003, 2009); Andrews (2018) and Walton (2020) that Marxism fails to recognise the social reality of race. Marxism actually rejects the primacy of race that is considered, first, as the ruling class’s ideology to foster racism, and second, as narrow, divisive and counter-productive in the fight against racism and the capitalist system that sustains it in social life. My argument here is that the analytical framework of race in explaining racism does not challenge racism but enables it. It gives the ruling and the capitalist establishment sufficient ground to divide the people and distract working and middle class attention (including White and other ethnic groups) from uniting to challenge the system of oppression that breeds racism in everyday life. This article now moves towards its conclusion by discussing race consciousness and racialised consciousness and their implications.
From race consciousness to racialised consciousness: anti-racism movement and the future of racism in a global society
The future of racism in the global society depends on the success of the anti-racism movement in deconstructing and eradicating racism in all societies where there is a significant population of Black and ethnic minorities. The success of the anti-racism movement requires the shift from race consciousness to racialised consciousness. The notions of race consciousness and racialised consciousness emanated in the work of Miles and Brown (2003) in their account of utilising racialisation to develop a practical action for an anti-racism campaign. Miles and Brown argued that ‘there is racialised consciousness among oppressed racialised groups, but they are groups by virtue of being racialised (socially defined as a ‘race’), not vice versa’ (Miles and Brown 2003: 6). This position is particularly salient and insightful, but it is not without its limits.
In contrast to Miles and Brown, racialised groups do not possess racialised consciousness automatically, as argued, until they are aware of their racialisation by the capitalist ruling classes. Racialised groups may not have racialised consciousness, as racialised consciousness is not automatic or statutory for the racialised groups. However, what racialised groups initially possess is what Brown (1931) regarded as ‘race consciousness’, which was defined as ‘the tendency towards sentimental and ideological identification with a racial group, in which race becomes an object of loyalty, devotion and pride, and by virtue of this fact becomes an entity, a collective representation’ (Brown 1931: 90). Brown’s definition was further articulated by Park (1923), Ferguson (1936), Gurin and Epps (1975), Broman et al. (1988), Woldemikael (1989), and Durant and Sparrow (1997). The critical insight in these studies was surmised by Durant and Sparrow (1997), who argued that race consciousness is a form of group consciousness that emerges among both dominant and subordinate racial groups. What is central in the conceptualisation of race consciousness in these studies is the awareness of race as the primary factor responsible for the inequality and subordination group (Black) relative to the dominant group (White). It, therefore, develops a sense of collective identity, expressed in different psychological and social forms of pride, commitment, loyalty, devotion and brotherhood/sisterhood as a counterweight to their subordinated condition of existence.
The underlying factor in race consciousness is that race is considered as the source of oppression, inequality and subordination, and the subordinated (racialised) groups mobilise ‘race’ as a form of solidarity to counter racism and subordination. With race consciousness, the racialised groups are racial subjects with racial subjectivity, and that subjectivity is woven into their sense of self over history. The perception in the Black community is that they are the victims of White racism and White privileges, and this made them to always consider themselves as racial subjects. Are the Black communities justified in sticking to race consciousness? The experience of Blacks during slavery and reconstruction, in which racial classification was invoked to victimise, humiliate, brutalise and dehumanise Africans as subhuman and subspecies, made the racialised group consider race as the source of oppression of the Blacks in which White people are depraved, exploitative and repressive. The race discourse, which is central to the Black liberation discourse, has developed into race consciousness for the Black community and has become the rally point for Black struggles, the anti-racism movement and the struggle for the liberation of Black people.
Therefore, the anti-racism movement is established on race discourse and perpetuates racism against White people, as the movement is rooted in ‘White defensive and offensive mechanisms and perpetuates racial consciousness on both sides of the barricades’ (Webster 1993: 90). The reaction of the ruling class, especially the American ruling class, to the anti-racism movement is to reaffirm the position of the Black community on race consciousness by constantly reminding them that ‘they are victims because of their race and given that race is an unchangeable condition, these minorities are encouraged to regard their socio-economic conditions as also unchangeable’ (Webster 1993: 54).
The current anti-racism movement against racism cannot be won based on the perception of race consciousness in which it is being fought. With the race discourse, both the American ruling class and the Black community are competing in the same sphere of race, in which the latter is not matched to the former, and therefore cannot win by playing the race game. The American ruling class is more powerful, whimsical, tactical, ruthless and has been in the game of divisiveness for a very long time, and the Black community, especially critical race theorists and Black radical theorists, are merely wasting their time by playing the same game of race with the American ruling class. The only language that constitutes threats to the ruling class in the fight against racism is the class, not a race. The perpetual fixation on race discourse and race consciousness has not been productive in challenging the ruling class and its tactics/politics of racism and overthrowing the capitalist system that sustains racism and racial inequalities. The constitution of race discourse and race consciousness in the anti-racism movement only reinforces the status quo and ensures that the capitalist system responsible for inequality, discrimination and worsened socio-economic conditions is unchallenged.
Furthermore, the current anti-racism movement can never usher in Black liberation because it is based on race consciousness directed against the White people and not the capitalism and the ruling class that sustained racism. Moreover, such anti-racism struggles are counter-productive and limited. The consequence of race consciousness is that the Black community still wallows in its victimisation syndrome, whose consequences manifest in self-defeating psychoses and paranoia in the current anti-racism campaign.
Despite myriads of strategies and concerted efforts undertaken in the current anti-racism movement, the movement has not successfully eradicated and deconstructed the vestiges of racism in all aspects of social, cultural, political, institutional and everyday lives. Although some concessions have been won, there are Black and other ethnic minorities in government as Ministers, Governors, Councillors, Members of Parliament, US Congress, CEOs and top government functionaries. Nonetheless, structural and institutional racism is still intact. Therefore, challenging racism from all angles requires a change in strategy and perspectives. The Black and other ethnic minorities must be mentally liberated from the grip and slavery of race consciousness before successfully fighting racism from all sides of their social and institutional lives. Hence, race discourse and race consciousness must be deconstructed and replaced with an alternative perspective: racialisation and racialised consciousness. Based on the theory of racialisation as articulated here, the ruling class and the capitalist system they represent should be the target of action.
Racialised consciousness entails understanding that the prevailing conditions and problems faced by the BAME community – racism, inequality, discrimination and oppression – is not because of their race but derive from the capitalist system that exploited the ideology of racism and sustained racism through racialisation. The shift from race consciousness towards racialised consciousness would enable the Black community to consider themselves as racialised subjects, whose racialised subjectivities and plights emanated from the structural context of capitalism that sustains racism, and which the American ruling class used to keep Black and other ethnic minorities in a perpetual state of inequality, discrimination and oppression. Racialised consciousness would enable the BAME community to be mentally and psychologically free and liberated from the race consciousness they had appropriated and subjected, and then enable them to confront the capitalist system that the Western ruling class used to maintain racism and deepen the pattern of exclusionary practices in all corners of human life.
In conclusion, the shift from race consciousness to racialised consciousness would offer fresh insight and perspective to the current anti-racism movement by allowing the BAME community to understand that their predicaments are not caused by race. Racialisation that is caused by the class rulership to protect capitalism from being challenged is the perpetrator. The effect of race consciousness is that it prevents BAME working/middle classes from collaborating and solidarising with the White working/middle classes to challenge the capitalist system responsible for oppression, inequality and racism in Western societies on the class line. Race consciousness plays into the ruling class’s hands, who seek to divide people along ethnic lines and prevent opposition to their class rule and the capitalist system under their control. Therefore, the anti-racism movement’s success, together with the future of racism, depends on the framework of racialisation and the racialised consciousness of the racialised groups.
Conclusion
This article articulates the class context of racialisation, using a neo-Marxist approach to the understanding of racism in Western societies, and extends the analysis of racialisation beyond a mode of production framework, as espoused by Miles and Cole. Employing class perspective, it is argued that racialisation is the basis of racism, and racism is one of the ideologies that the ruling class uses to divide the working and middle class along ethnic lines to prevent unity of the classes, so that they would not unite and challenge capitalism and their control as a class.
As a way of perpetuating racism in all facets of the social, cultural, national and institutional lives of the people, the ruling class racialises the White people against Black and other ethnic minorities through different tactics and methods, such as the media (owned and controlled by the ruling class), state policies, laws and regulations, and institutional practices. Therefore, racialisation is the ideological process through which racism is reproduced in Western societies by those who have the means of production, distribution and control of media, social and cultural institutions, and state bureaucracy.
The deconstruction and eradication of racism cannot be undertaken without putting an end to class society and overthrowing the defenders of the oppressive capitalist system that sustain racism and other forms of discrimination, and prejudices for their own interests. By having a racialised consciousness, the racialised groups can unite with other victims of the system – who are White working class and middle class, to facilitate the transformation of the society.
To transform society requires the shift from race consciousness (that has dominated the anti-racism campaign/movement) to racialised consciousness. Race consciousness would not allow the BAME community to fight racism and discrimination of all kinds because of the race discourse, which has prevented them from understanding that the source of their predicament is not race, but racialisation that is based on class (rule and control of the Western ruling class) to preserve the capitalist status quo. In this sense, the current anti-racism campaign is counter-productive, self-defeating and enabling racism because it is rooted in race discourse, and focused on the wrong target (White people). The narrow remit of race discourse and race consciousness which underpin much of current anti-racism has not only played into the hands of the Western ruling class but has played the game of the ruling class and acted out the script of divisiveness from its playbook of racism as an ideology.
The break and freedom from the race consciousness would enable the socio-economic and political conditions of the BAME community to be considered from the perspective of a capitalist system that has racialised them to be in those conditions, and from race discourse. This is what racialised consciousness depicts. The importance of racialised consciousness is that it acts as a political unifier in anti-racism campaign and connects the struggles of the Black working and middle class with that of the White working and middle class in terms of collaboration and solidarity, to collectively challenge the capitalist system that is responsible for oppression, inequality and racism on class lines.
In conclusion, the class basis of racialisation articulated in this article is to complement and expand the existing Marxist literature on racism beyond a mode of production framework that Miles and Cole espoused. This expansion would help to strengthen the analytical value of racialisation in the understanding of racism and the reproduction of racism in everyday life, in the media, social and cultural institutions, and in the fundamental objectives of state policies in Western societies.
