Whatever happened to the black working class? Racism, legitimate grievance and social death

Whatever happened to the black working class? Racism, legitimate grievance and social death

Prof Paul Warmington, Centre for Global Learning, Coventry University

4 February, 11-12:30

GSRC, Arts C / Zoom Webinar

"What, to paraphrase WEB Dubois, does it mean to be a legitimate grievance? The current English century has seen a resurgence of Powellite ethno-nationalism, wherein politicians, policy-makers and news media have constructed an ‘authentic white working-class’ in ways that necessitate the phenomenological disappearance of Black and Brown working-class people. This paper examines the discursive positioning of people of colour, not only as outside of (working) class identity, but often as the cause of white working class loss, as a legitimate (racial) grievance. In the aftermath of the riots of summer 2024, the paper explores contemporary rearticulations of discourses of race and class, the transatlantic discourse of the ‘left behind’ and the ‘social death’ implicit in disqualification from class identity." 

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