Adapting to post-racialism? Definitions of racism in non-governmental organization advocacy that mainstreams anti-racism

Abstract

Scholarly discussions contesting post-racialism have noted how the false but common belief – that systematic racism has been defeated in Western societies – works to undermine anti-racism’s critical potential. Simultaneously, the discussion about the relativization of anti-racism has mainly been located in contexts with strong anti-racist traditions. By exploring anti-racism in the Finnish civil society, the article thematizes thinking around the post-racial modality of racism in a context where racism is often presented as a recent phenomenon. A discourse analysis of non-governmental organization advocacy materials that work to mainstream anti-racism identifies three parallel problem-definitions of racism, illustrating a tendency to understand racism as an individual flaw in a non-racist social reality. This shows that trivializing racism and recentring whiteness happen through classed and aged discourses.