Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I investigate how complicitous silence (Bourdieu, 1994) around particular racial attitudes, contributes to an educational atmosphere in which race has a structuring absence.

Paper long abstract:

While it has become commonplace to assert that we have progressed to a 'post-race' era, Goldberg (2015) has identified the way in which the concept of the 'post-race' society has served to further entrench structural racism, and how instances of racist behaviour are then relegated to 'isolated' and 'individual acts'. This can be seen within the broader context of Western post-colonial societies peddling idealized and indeed 'sanitised' versions of European colonialism which negate the centrality of racial hierarchy to the colonial project (Lentin, 2008). Racism is thus portrayed as a transient deviance or as an excess. In this paper, I investigate how complicitous silence (Bourdieu, 1994) around particular racial attitudes, contributes to an educational atmosphere in which race has a structuring absence. By drawing on ethnographic data from a so-called 'concentration' school in Belgium, I explore the way in which race is negotiated in the classroom, and how these interactions act as a microcosm of broader society. I argue that silence concerning racialized interactions between pupils, and the disavowal of race, rather than countering racism (and segregation) in the school arena, serve to increase incidences of racist behaviour and perpetuate the epistemic violence of racial prejudice.