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Outspoken
Race to the Bottom: Reclaiming Antiracism
'A tour de force' - Dalia Gebrial
Antiracist movements are more mainstream than ever before. Liberal democracies boast of their policies designed to stamp out racism in all walks of life. Why then is racism still ever-present in our society?
This is not an accident, but by design. Capitalism is structured by racism and has relentlessly attacked powerful movements. Race to the Bottom traces our current crisis back decades, to the fragmentation of Britain's Black Power movements and their absorption into NGOs and the Labour Party.
The authors call for recovering radical histories of antiracist struggle, championing modern activism and infusing them with the urgency of our times: replacing anxieties over 'unconscious bias' and rival claims for 'representation' with the struggle for a new, socialist, multi-racial organizing from below.
Antiracist movements are more mainstream than ever before. Liberal democracies boast of their policies designed to stamp out racism in all walks of life. Why then is racism still ever-present in our society?
This is not an accident, but by design. Capitalism is structured by racism and has relentlessly attacked powerful movements. Race to the Bottom traces our current crisis back decades, to the fragmentation of Britain's Black Power movements and their absorption into NGOs and the Labour Party.
The authors call for recovering radical histories of antiracist struggle, championing modern activism and infusing them with the urgency of our times: replacing anxieties over 'unconscious bias' and rival claims for 'representation' with the struggle for a new, socialist, multi-racial organizing from below.
192 pages, Paperback
Published June 20, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 16, 2022
Powerfully shows how antiracism has been co-opted by the state powers it struggled against, emptied of its political content and turned into an individual struggle devoid of solidarity.
May 29, 2023
this book is relatively new (2020 I think) so it was written during and just after lockdown and all the summer protests and it was so strange reading about those in such a past tense because that year had such a horrific impact on everyone but it feels weird to know things you were part of are part of history now (this was so unrelated to the book but I had to share)
July 20, 2022
The premise argued by the authors is that there are two kinds of anti-racist action: anti-racism from above and anti-racism from below. Often without consultation and sometimes to the detriment of their real needs. The latter comes from the minority communities themselves and can often be resisted by the use of anti-racism programmes imposed from above. To my mind, there is no doubt that anti-racist action should be led by the communities that have to deal with racism on a day-to-day basis, and especially by those on the receiving end of the ingrained, institutional racism of the state.
This book seeks to discuss the issue from the viewpoint of the Black Power movement in the UK. This I think misses a part of the point. In the UK in the 1950s, when I was growing up, there was an inherent use in daily life. Terms of abuse for the minority communities, including the Jews, were a daily commonplace. and hardly anyone, not the teachers in playgrounds nor the police on the streets, thought to challenge them. There were three things that brought this to a head: the Notting Hill Race Riots of 1958, the Smethwick election in 1964 and Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech in 1968.
The Notting Hill Riots in 1958 began when a group of young white men, inspired by far-right groups, decided to attack the West Indian community living in and around Notting Hill. The police did not intervene until the community defended itself. There were several days of rioting. This police lack of concern was underlined the next year when Kelso Cochrane, a young man from the local community, was murdered. This is what persuaded Claudia Jones and others to begin the Notting Hill Carnival as a celebration of Afro-Caribbean culture.
This is exactly what the authors are talking about when discussing anti-racism from below. The biggest street festival in Europe came out of the local community. It is attended by hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, black and white, and is a joyful celebration of the contribution of the Afro-Caribbean community to British cultural life.
The police however see it differently. On the one hand, it is a PR opportunity and there have been regular photographs in the press of young police officers dancing with members of the community to reggae music or whatever. On the other hand, the police view it as a matter of crowd control and try to impose limits on the crowd. I remember clearly that the police tried to direct the African National Congress float in 1990 away from the crowd lining Ladbroke Grove in to a side street where we would not be seen. We had Blacka Dredd and the Sir Coxsone Sound System on the float, playing a message from the newly-released Nelson Mandela, which ended with a request for Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”. We had no intention of being shunted into a side street, and it is quite likely that the crowd would have tried to follow us. In the end the police backed off, but this kind of macho attitude has led to trouble at Carnival on a number of occasions.
I am surprised that the book mentions the 1958 riots, but does not mention Carnival, which is a perfect illustration of its argument.
The Smethwick Election in 1964 was a seminal event in the emergence of anti-racist campaigning in Great Britain. Peter Griffiths, the Conservative candidate, won this election against the national trend by running a blatant and disgusting racist campaign with a slogan that does not bear repeating. My very simple question is this: Why was this man on the candidates’ list drawn up by Conservative Central Office. A second question is also simple: Wy was he allowed to use this slogan at all? The point is that he was, and he won his election on a racist slogan, mobilising white voters against the minority communities. He defeated Patrick Gordon Walker, a member of the then Labour Shadow Cabinet, which caused a sensation. When Griffiths arrived in Parliament, Harold Wilson, the newly-elected Labour Prime Minister, called for him to be boycotted. This was one of the events that led to the Race Relations Act of 1966 because it was irrefutable proof that racism was a political problem and had to be dealt with. This is a perfect illustration of anti-racism from above, but the authors do not give Smethwick so much as a mention.
Then in 1968, Enoch Powell gave a speech in Birmingham, quite near to Smethwick, threatening that the country would be drowned in “rivers of blood” because of the existence of the minority communities. Here, the authors make a fundamental mistake. Enoch Powell was not a member of the Tory Cabinet, because the Conservative Party were not the government in 1968. He was a member of the Shadow Cabinet. The new leader of the Conservative Party, Edward Heath, was appalled by Powell’s speech and immediately sacked him from the Shadow Cabinet This set off a political schism in the Conservative Party, which was only resolved when Margaret Thatcher, who had just replaced Edward Heath as the leader, referred in a TV interview to “swamping”.
There are other mistakes in the book, but they are minor in comparison. There is one glaring gap which is the glossing over of the large and mainly white anti-racist organisations. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) is mentioned in passing, but I do not recall any mentions of the Movement for Colonial Freedom, the Anti-Nazi League, Rock Against Racism and a host of others. The explanation is that the authors are looking at anti-racism in the UK from the perspective of the Black Power Movement, which did not have a very long lifespan.
This book has many flaws, but the argument that it is putting forward is one that the left must consider. The leadership of the anti-racist movement in the UK should come from within the communities affected. That, to my mind, is unarguable. But it also should not be forgotten that if anti-racism does not mobilise the overwhelming majority of the population, then it has no chance of succeeding.
The anti-racist slogan of my youth was “Black and White, Unite and Fight”. That still applies today.
This book seeks to discuss the issue from the viewpoint of the Black Power movement in the UK. This I think misses a part of the point. In the UK in the 1950s, when I was growing up, there was an inherent use in daily life. Terms of abuse for the minority communities, including the Jews, were a daily commonplace. and hardly anyone, not the teachers in playgrounds nor the police on the streets, thought to challenge them. There were three things that brought this to a head: the Notting Hill Race Riots of 1958, the Smethwick election in 1964 and Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech in 1968.
The Notting Hill Riots in 1958 began when a group of young white men, inspired by far-right groups, decided to attack the West Indian community living in and around Notting Hill. The police did not intervene until the community defended itself. There were several days of rioting. This police lack of concern was underlined the next year when Kelso Cochrane, a young man from the local community, was murdered. This is what persuaded Claudia Jones and others to begin the Notting Hill Carnival as a celebration of Afro-Caribbean culture.
This is exactly what the authors are talking about when discussing anti-racism from below. The biggest street festival in Europe came out of the local community. It is attended by hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, black and white, and is a joyful celebration of the contribution of the Afro-Caribbean community to British cultural life.
The police however see it differently. On the one hand, it is a PR opportunity and there have been regular photographs in the press of young police officers dancing with members of the community to reggae music or whatever. On the other hand, the police view it as a matter of crowd control and try to impose limits on the crowd. I remember clearly that the police tried to direct the African National Congress float in 1990 away from the crowd lining Ladbroke Grove in to a side street where we would not be seen. We had Blacka Dredd and the Sir Coxsone Sound System on the float, playing a message from the newly-released Nelson Mandela, which ended with a request for Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”. We had no intention of being shunted into a side street, and it is quite likely that the crowd would have tried to follow us. In the end the police backed off, but this kind of macho attitude has led to trouble at Carnival on a number of occasions.
I am surprised that the book mentions the 1958 riots, but does not mention Carnival, which is a perfect illustration of its argument.
The Smethwick Election in 1964 was a seminal event in the emergence of anti-racist campaigning in Great Britain. Peter Griffiths, the Conservative candidate, won this election against the national trend by running a blatant and disgusting racist campaign with a slogan that does not bear repeating. My very simple question is this: Why was this man on the candidates’ list drawn up by Conservative Central Office. A second question is also simple: Wy was he allowed to use this slogan at all? The point is that he was, and he won his election on a racist slogan, mobilising white voters against the minority communities. He defeated Patrick Gordon Walker, a member of the then Labour Shadow Cabinet, which caused a sensation. When Griffiths arrived in Parliament, Harold Wilson, the newly-elected Labour Prime Minister, called for him to be boycotted. This was one of the events that led to the Race Relations Act of 1966 because it was irrefutable proof that racism was a political problem and had to be dealt with. This is a perfect illustration of anti-racism from above, but the authors do not give Smethwick so much as a mention.
Then in 1968, Enoch Powell gave a speech in Birmingham, quite near to Smethwick, threatening that the country would be drowned in “rivers of blood” because of the existence of the minority communities. Here, the authors make a fundamental mistake. Enoch Powell was not a member of the Tory Cabinet, because the Conservative Party were not the government in 1968. He was a member of the Shadow Cabinet. The new leader of the Conservative Party, Edward Heath, was appalled by Powell’s speech and immediately sacked him from the Shadow Cabinet This set off a political schism in the Conservative Party, which was only resolved when Margaret Thatcher, who had just replaced Edward Heath as the leader, referred in a TV interview to “swamping”.
There are other mistakes in the book, but they are minor in comparison. There is one glaring gap which is the glossing over of the large and mainly white anti-racist organisations. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) is mentioned in passing, but I do not recall any mentions of the Movement for Colonial Freedom, the Anti-Nazi League, Rock Against Racism and a host of others. The explanation is that the authors are looking at anti-racism in the UK from the perspective of the Black Power Movement, which did not have a very long lifespan.
This book has many flaws, but the argument that it is putting forward is one that the left must consider. The leadership of the anti-racist movement in the UK should come from within the communities affected. That, to my mind, is unarguable. But it also should not be forgotten that if anti-racism does not mobilise the overwhelming majority of the population, then it has no chance of succeeding.
The anti-racist slogan of my youth was “Black and White, Unite and Fight”. That still applies today.
April 12, 2023
This book was great. Its an explanation for why we saw such global action around Black Lives Matter in 2020 and yet our world is still racist. It explains that what happened in the 80s in the UK with the Black Power Movement is much like what is happening now; a few individuals get a leg up, get to sit in the board room, get to be MPs, get to break through into the (upper) middle class and thereby the community action is dispersed and dampened. A few individuals are allowed to get ahead, while the UK government/state continues its same racist status quo. This book does a good job of explaining the history, making links to the present and being very inclusive in regards to race, class and gender. The use of Black* in the book refers to not only black people, but other marginalised groups. My critique of this book is one that seems to be a theme in this Icon Outspoken series: bad editing. The footnotes are inconsistent, sometimes we get a proper citation, sometimes only a URL with the access date and sometimes statements are made without referencing the source. This makes the reader start to doubt the information being conveyed, which is a shame. As an introduction to a topic, which I believe this series is supposed to be, insufficient referencing is frustrating as it takes away the ability for further reading and casts doubt on statements, which may be read by people who are new to the topic (which could mean they need valuable persuasion as to this point of view).
Read
December 11, 2022Thoroughly dismantles the idea of racism in Britain as a problem of individuals and soundly demonstrates how the machinery of the state has been put to work to nullify antiracist movements. In depth but avoids the over-academised nature of lots of other books of this type.
March 8, 2024
Because this was the first 65% a history of anti racist movement in the UK, it was difficult to get into that first section. Once it reached more current events of this millennium though, and projections/inspirations toward the future, it picked up.
July 5, 2022
4.5 stars
July 12, 2022
A brilliant analysis that makes it a must read for anti-racist organisers and those that are trying to understand Anti-racism. A crucial intervention in the soup of contemporary discourse
Read
January 30, 2024Brilliant book, bringing Sivanandan's (and others) key insights in to the post 2020 world. Cannot recommend enough. Especially for brit and labour comrades.
May 29, 2024
Objectively good but for me no new info
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews