That's Racist! - Imprint Academic

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In twenty-first century Britain, children of all ethnic groups play together at school and in their neighbourhoods. They grow up together, and have children together. The ongoing rise of the 'mixed race' population shows the extent to which the awareness of ‘racial difference’ has disappeared from people’s everyday experience: a fact, surely, that anti-racist campaigners should celebrate.

And yet in recent years, playgrounds and classrooms have endured unprecedented interference in the form of official racist-incident reporting, training on the importance of racial etiquette, and the reinforcement of racial identities. In workplaces and public institutions, self-styled ‘anti-racist’ campaigns seize on bad jokes, playground insults, and clumsy behaviours as evidence that racism is on the rise, and that more rules are needed to control people’s attitudes and behaviours.

How do we make sense of this reality gap, between the genuine diversity of everyday life and the racialised assumptions that drive ‘anti-racist’ policy? In That’s Racist! Adrian Hart reflects on his experience of anti-racist campaigning in 1980s East London, and his later studies of allegedly racist behaviour among primary school children, to show how the language of anti-racism has been co-opted by a divisive new policy agenda.

In Britain today, it is no longer racism that sets us against each other, but the demand that we should be hyper-sensitive about each other’s differences. As we try to navigate this new landscape, the first casualty is freedom of speech.
Oct 19, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/19/too-militant-campaigning-against-racism

Source: The Guardian

Credit: Hugh Muir

"I'm not for howling him down, even though I’m there in the index and get a bit of a scuffing in his text. For debate is just that. Opinions differ. Maybe he’s right and there has been a kind of anti-racist mission creep."

Nov 14, 2014

http://www.spiked-online.com/review_of_books/article/the-myth-of-racist-britain/16182#.VGm-n8lolr9

Source: Spiked

Credit: Mick Hume

"'That's racist!’, along with such fashionable ripostes as ‘Check your privilege!’, is another way of repeating the dominant cultural prejudice that You Can’t Say That. Fortunately, there are still those like Adrian Hart who can, and will."

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=That%27s_Racist:_How_the_regulation_of_speech_and_thought_divides_us_all_by_Adrian_Hart

Source: The Bookbag

Credit: Sue Magee

"This isn't the first Imprint Academic Book which I've begun with the thought that that my own prejudices were going to be confirmed and ended up with a complete rethink."

Credit: Professor Frank Furedi, sociologist, commentator and author

"The observation 'that's racist’ frequently means little more than ‘that’s unpleasant’. This book warns that such inflated rhetoric actually robs racism of its real meaning. An excellent contribution."

Credit: Munira Mirza, Deputy Mayor for Education and Culture of London

"Adrian Hart has written a punchy yet balanced account of the growth of official anti-racism policies in Britain and their unintended harm. Packed full of examples, it is all the more persuasive because of his own experience as a passionate anti-racist activist in the 1980s."
Paperback
- Publication Date: 01 November 2014
- ISBN-13: 9781845407551
- Extent: Main content page count : 160
- Code: 9781845407551
- Dimensions: 13.5 x 21 x 1 cm
- Weight: 200 grams
- Packaging Type: No outer packaging
- List Price: £9.95
- ONIX Version 2.1, Version 3

Details

Title: That's Racist!
Subtitle: How the Regulation of Speech and Thought Divides Us All
Author: Adrian Hart
Collection: Societas
Language: English
Publisher: Imprint Academic
Imprint: Societas

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