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Universities as racist structures: What does it mean to research racism?



I have often wondered this in carrying out our ongoing research on racism and its effects on health and wellbeing in global contexts.

Much like a lot of other things, the scholarship on racism within academia is structured within the logics of Whiteness.

On one hand, to research racism, intersectionality, and forms of inequality is a seductive brand positioning. On the other hand, to commit to dismantling racism in the broader society and in the university structures is a threat to the status quo.

The neoliberal university loves the identity games, what with addressing inequality codified into one of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

You will even contribute to your university's rankings and global "coolness quotient" when you publish on racism.

One will even witness many White scholars studying racism, opining on the presence and extent of racism in society.

It is an altogether different story though when you, as an academic of colour, bring home the research, turning the lens on the university structure itself.

The interrogation of university structures and the logics of racism that constitute them is quickly labeled uncivil, unprofessional, harassment, bullying etc.

The structures of Whiteness respond with complaints about your "incivility" "reverse racism" etc. because, wait, you have turned the lens on the racism that inhabits the university as a structure of knowledge production.

Across classrooms, centers, departments, institutions, academics of colour have been targets of racist attacks for speaking out against racism that occupies academe and voicing their pain amidst the structural inequalities codified into universities.

When these attacks take place, more often than  not, the White scholars that make careers out of writing about racism, adjustment, and cross-cultural communication go missing.

They are quick in their distancing from scholars of colour and our sruggles to dismantle racism.

Such extractive relationships that turn painful stories of experiences of racism into publications often thrive on the circulation of the racist ideology. The existence of racism offers a research topic to study, rather than offering an embodied site for solidarity. It is only when racism turns from a research topic into a site for the everyday work of anti-racist practice can we start imagining societies built on equality.

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