Surviving the survival narrative, part 2: Conceptualising Whiteness-as-utility and internalised racism

Abstract

This article interrogates how the concept of critical consciousness applies to racialised subjects’ lived experiences when attempting to resist racialisation and racism within Australian society. We first demonstrate the incongruence between the theoretical conceptualisation of critical consciousness-raising and its practical application for racialised subjects, examined through the concept of the will-to-resist. This foregrounds the individualised nature of resistance for the racialised. Then, we offer a helpful conceptual differentiation between racialised survival, discussed in terms of Whiteness-as-utility. This has often become conflated with the phenomenon of internalised racism (IR), discussed in terms of Whiteness-as-referent. Overall, we suggest that subversion, or rather, resistance through adaptation, may indeed be a survival tactic for the racialised, but is nevertheless one that fails to effectively subvert racist systems due to the racialised dynamics inherent within the settler colonial structure. This highlights the need to account for the dynamics of IR when attempting to understand issues of race, as it presents a significant hurdle towards anti-racism objectives.