Sociology taster course | Goldsmiths, University of London

During the latter half of the 20th century many sociologists have argued that racism has assumed more subtle forms. These newer expressions of racism are said to be less predicated on biological notions of superior and inferior races and increasingly reliant on replacement terms such as ‘culture’ and ‘difference’. Within British governmental discourse, for example, a values deficit is identified as emerging from ‘cultural diversity’ and ‘faith communities’, evidenced in general terms by the ‘failure of multiculturalism’. This lecture will ask whether we are now witnessing both a ‘softening’ and ‘hardening’ of racist discourse during the early 21st century.