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    Very nice and enjoyable .. Archived Message

    Posted by t on September 3, 2023, 12:41 am, in reply to "Bookwatch: challenging the ideology of race"

    Elkins shows how empire justified itself at its peak. The purpose of British expansion was supposedly the provision of justice and the rule of law to all its subjects. Unfortunately, many of these subjects were not “civilised” enough to quietly accept these gifts, so the rule of law was often put aside, with “exceptional state-directed violence” used repeatedly and then “exonerated” by the authorities.21

    Says it all : )

    Another interesting passage, talking about recent politics:

    Much of Britain’s establishment at the time saw its future in states ­opening up internationally through incorporation within neoliberal bodies such as the European Union: “The nation was eroding alongside the state”.28 This view of the world suggested that “wealth inequality could be justified as the legitimate outcome of meritocratic competition”. However, after the crash, “blaming people for their poverty became increasingly untenable”. This resulted in the “rehabilitation of low-income white Britons as ‘left behind’”, thus creating “the image of a relatively powerless national people—racialised as white—whose interests could be represented by a nationalist wildcat elite because the ‘metropolitan elite’ would not”.29 The “hostile environment” was an intensification of this kind of “othering” of migrants.

    Another gem:

    The argument, noted by Stanley, that Britain is run by a “politically ­correct” liberal elite is given an intellectual gloss in David Goodhart’s book, The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics, which was published in 2017. Goodhart argues, rather sloppily, that the country is no longer divided primarily by class or into left and right, but rather between “anywheres” and “somewheres”. The book counterposes a cosmopolitan, ­university-educated elite, who can live anywhere and support migration, with an abandoned majority, who are attached to “somewhere”: “Whites are forced to think about their ethnic identity, often for the first time, when their ­symbols and priorities no longer automatically dominate in a ­neighbourhood—as a pub closes and the Polish shop or halal butcher opens”.32 Unfortunately, variations on this nationalist theme have been used on the reformist left, for example, within the right-wing Blue Labour ­phenomenon and, most recently, by journalist Paul Mason.33

    Ultimately:

    At their best, many of these books show that racism is a constantly evolving enemy.

    Many other quotable paras ... good particle

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