Theorising racist hate speech on UK university campuses through a CRT lens

Abstract

ABSTRACT Racist hate speech on UK university campuses remains an increasing concern. This article examines the widespread problem of racist hate speech through a multilayered theoretical approach; and suggests that a fuller appreciation of the problem can only be gained through a race-centred analysis. Drawing on Fraser’s work on the problematics of misrecognition and identity-reification, the article extends Levine-Rasky’s theoreticisation of power dynamics in the intersectionality between whiteness and middle-classness to intersections of whiteness with both middle-classness and working-classness as a contributing factor to mobilisation of lad cultures which is termed as white-laddism. The article advances the understanding of racist hate speech through a conjoined analysis of these concepts through a Critical Race Theory (CRT) lens. The conjoined analysis is informed by the Deleuzian ‘rhizomatic’ approach in order to examine the process by which multiple, diverse and non-hierarchical lines of connection between the concepts shape, dislocate, modify each other in variable ways. The detail behind the bigger picture helps further our understanding of the inadequate nature of equality policies and strategies that often look at issues in isolation, and thus fail to address the inequality and injustice being perpetuated on campuses.