Exception culture rests on knowing who is inside and on suspensions never touching insiders

Evidence

Race thinking helps us to believe in the necessity of an all-powerful sovereign. If the threat can be contained in no other way than through this extraordinary power to suspend fundamental rights, it is surely because ‘they (those who threaten us)’ are not like ‘us’ and can only be stopped with brute force. As Angelina Snodgrass Godoy perceptively notes, two assumptions remain unchallenged in the culture of exception: we can tell them from us, and the suspensions of the rule of law will not affect those of us who are deemed to be within political community. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 77

Categorization

• DEFINE: Godoy’s two unchallenged assumptions give a crisp definition of the ‘culture of exception’.