ABSTRACT
Anti-racism appears to have a double life. If one were foolish enough to believe everything that was said on the topic, one would be forced to conclude that it is both extraordinarily rare and all-pervasive, simultaneously integral to capitalist modernisation and a harbinger of Marxist revolution. Adding to the sense of confusion that surrounds the subject, debate on anti-racism is often confined to the level of polemic. I have heard anti-racism being celebrated as ‘essential’ and ‘necessary’, as well as being attacked as ‘politically correct nonsense’, even as ‘evil’. Adding bewilderment to confusion, the latter epithets all arose from people who prefaced their remarks by claiming to oppose, even to ‘hate’, racism.
