Racism and Free Speech

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Free speech has become central to discussions about racism, and is increasingly weaponised against anti-racist movements. This book argues that the weaponization of free speech across the political spectrum, particularly by the far-right/alt-right, has been central to the resurgence, rehabilitation and normalisation of racism within the mainstream politics of western liberal democracies in the last decade. The dilemma then, for the anti-racist movement, is how to respond to such a challenge for if free speech allows racism, then it follows that the elimination of racism is not possible. Anshuman A. Mondal argues that liberalism has made it look as if there is something called free speech when, in fact, speech is enabled by the structures of power within which we are all embedded. These structures create and sustain racism, and anti-racism should look beyond the mythology of free speech and focus instead on creating expressive regimes that foster racial and social justice by reshaping social discourse and transforming racialized structures of power.

Author Bio

Anshuman A. Mondal is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of East Anglia. His research focusses on the construction of modern social and political identities, and the cultural politics attendant upon them. A cultural historian of colonial and post-colonial South Asia and the Middle East, he has written extensively on nationalism, communalism and religious politics, and the constitution of a racialized modernity in both global South societies and western liberal democracies. He has published extensively on Islamism, on young British Muslims, on Salman Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh, and also on Brexit. His books on these topics include Nationalism and Post-colonial Identity: Culture and Ideology in India and Egypt (2003), Amitav Ghosh (2007), and Young British Muslim Voices (2008).