White supremacy in retreat? Past histories and contemporary racisms in the public pedagogies of Britain and America

Abstract

ABSTRACT Racisms are plural, taking different forms in different countries, subject to change in focus and intensity over time. Colonialism and slavery influence attitudes and policies in both countries through to modern times. In examining the British and American contexts, one needs to particularise by a) country, b) ethnicities, c) histories, d) contemporary economic forces which sustain racisms and e) anti-racist and decolonising practices in the school curriculum, instructional relationships and wider public education contexts. Racisms are about power and exploitation, generally exercised by a White population through the devaluing of minorities and denial of their rights, needs and pain. Despite Civil Rights laws and Affirmative Action, the USA has a brand of racism that is at times barbaric, extreme and recurrent, bolstered by discriminatory law and law enforcement. Britain’s racisms, despite Race Relations Acts, discriminate across a range of sectors with interventions funded which have been too limited, seldom sustained and with variable impacts. Until attributes of ‘Whiteness’ are openly interrogated, the folk histories of the countries rebalanced, the school curriculum reconsidered and historical roots for contemporary ‘erasure of Black suffering’ are recognised, ‘White premium’ will persist. That is the challenge to public pedagogies in educational establishments and the wider society.