“Europe” and the Narrative of the “True Racist”: (Un-)thinking Anti-Discrimination Law through Race

Abstract

The article starts from the assumption that the slow and unsatisfactory development of case-law concerning racism in Europe needs to be addressed engaging with wider political and policy developments that have shaped the silence about race and racism. I propose an analysis of political texts, reports and academic literature, developed since the mid-1980s, that approached the discussion and negotiation of legal provisions that prohibit racial discrimination. The analysis aims to unravel the reproduction of the mythical foundation of modern law that erases coloniality and institutional racism that is, it erases the embeddedness of race in the formation of the West. In this context, racism is seen as an exteriority and a deviation and therefore, policy and legal provisions remain largely unscrutinised in their complicity with the reproduction of racism.El artículo parte del presupuesto de que el lento e insatisfactorio desarrollo de jurisprudencia relativa al racismo en Europa debe abordarse en diálogo con procesos políticos más amplios que han moldeado el silencio sobre la raza y el racismo. Propongo un análisis de textos e informes de carácter político y de literatura académica, desarrollados desde mediados de los años 80, que consideraron el debate y la negociación de provisiones jurídicas que prohibieran la discriminación racial. El análisis tiene como objeto desentrañar la reproducción de la fundación mítica del derecho moderno como narrativa que borra la colonialidad y el racismo institucional, esto es, borra lo racial como constitutivo de la formación de Occidente. En este contexto, el racismo se ve como una externalidad y una desviación y, por tanto, la complicidad de las provisiones políticas y jurídicas con la reproducción del racismo permanece, en gran medida, sin examinar. Available from: https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-0974 Note: This article has been updated on 13 December 2022 to correct citations to “Sayyid 2004” on pages 854 and 855. The document cited is EP 1986. This mistake was generated during the production stage.

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