Not Today Colonizer: Performative Antiracism is Racism

Keywords: Antiracism, education, performativity, racism, radical politics
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 77

Abstract

This paper suggests that academic institutions and school boards perform antiracism, engaging in acts of racism by way of said performativity. Specifically, I take up Ahmed’s (2006) examination of speech acts defined by nonperformativity; that is, “they do not do what they say” (Ahmed, 2004, para. 1). I draw on examples such as McGill University’s statement on Truth and Reconciliation and the Residential School System, to argue that speech acts disguise the institution’s culpable nature in upholding white supremacy. This paper also seeks to address how performativity around antiracism takes form when attempts of delegitimization are employed. I refer to the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and its statement around having a “serious racism problem” in a report by its Human Rights Office, but conservative and neoliberal tactics such as “both sides,” “devil’s advocate,” and “whataboutism” continue to hinder antiracism work. I point to the recent example of saying Free Palestine and the TDSB’s racist logic that conflates its support of Israel, an apartheid state, as antiracism, and how that stifles and undermines the spatiality of antiracism and its radical roots.