Racialized people can practice a vernacular anti-race-ism refusing racist categories

Evidence

Denico and Ricardo are trying to think beyond and outside of racial categories, even as these categories enclose and delimit them. In other words, they are demonstrating a vernacular anti-race-ism (Bhatt, 2016). Despite his experiences of police racism, Ricardo did not want to reduce all ‘white people’ to the actions of those police officers. Ricardo did not want to invoke ‘white people’ as a category of abuse, and my suggestion that even if he did, it would not be racist, fails to appreciate his attempts to avoid any resentments on the basis of ‘race’. Meanwhile, Denico was nervous about even uttering the words ‘white people’. Again, this might be seen to be a reflection of his racialised subjugation and submissiveness, but also of relevance is the fact that the mother of Denico’s partner in the UK was white, and he spoke often about how kind and supportive she had been to him during his time in the UK. Perhaps his discomfort with saying ‘white people’ represents a general aversion to reinvesting in the logic of racial difference and its lazy Manicheanisms. — Luke de Noronha, The conviviality of the overpoliced,…, 62

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘vernacular anti-race-ism’ (after Bhatt, 2016): a refusal-of-racial-logic practiced from within, by the very people those categories enclose.
• ADDENDUM: The refusal of ‘lazy Manicheanisms’ and reduced personhood around othering echoes Complaints About Immodesty’s class/identity signaling lens — the author here resists collapsing a person into a single reductionist category.
• DEEPTHINKING: The move of recoding apparent submissiveness/awkwardness — not wanting to even say ‘white people’ — as an active ethical refusal rather than internalized subjugation is genuinely paradigm-reshifting in the study of race.
• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — Luke de Noronha, The conviviality of the overpoliced,…, 62
• XREF: connects to: Deportees subjected to state racism can still refuse racial categories themselves. — Luke de Noronha, The conviviality of the overpoliced,…, 5; Mixed-race people articulate a counter-language against imposed racial negation — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2471; Antiracist resistance can operate by acting out the racial stereotype to undercut it (+6 more)

Related

• Deportees subjected to state racism can still refuse racial categories themselves. (similarity 0.85)
• Refusing race can foster solidarity across differently racialised groups (similarity 0.83)
• The dismissal of reverse racism can silence what the marginalized are actually saying (similarity 0.83)
• Targets of racial violence can consciously refuse racial thinking itself (similarity 0.81)
• Mixed-race people articulate a counter-language against imposed racial negation (similarity 0.80)
• Whiteness being the unspoken norm makes naming it feel racist even to racialised minorities. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Mixed-race people articulate a counter-language against imposed racial negation #corroborates (0.88) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2471
• Refusing race can foster solidarity across differently racialised groups #expands (0.85) — Luke de Noronha, The conviviality of the overpoliced,…, 65
• Antiracialism opposes the category of race without opposing racialized living conditions #complicates (0.80)
• Anti-racist perception requires disciplined attention that refuses categorical collapse #corroborates (0.80)
• Racist ideologies can be turned into vehicles of opposition and resistance #expands (0.80) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 638
• Antiracist resistance can operate by acting out the racial stereotype to undercut it #expands (0.78)
• Opposing the race concept differs from opposing racist conditions #qualifies (0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 84
• Oppressed groups can adopt and police the racist ideas used against them #complicates (0.75) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 516