Playing the race card: White injury, White victimhood and the paradox of colour-blind ideology in anti-immigrant discourse

ABSTRACT

Analysing online threads, we show how nativist extremist forum participants use the term “race card” within their anti-illegal immigration rhetoric in three ways. First, they employ abstract liberalism to argue that immigrants use the race card to gain undeserved access to resources. Secondly, participants disassociate the issue of immigration as a racial issue. Both tactics are cloaked within a colour-blind framework. Third, they use a White injury narrative casting themselves as victims and immigrants as villains/perpetrators, paradoxically highlighting race while arguing for colourblindness. We conclude with a discussion on how “new racism” and “new nativism” among our participants represent a transition in the rise of ethnonationalist populism among Western democracies.

KEYWORDS:

• Nativism
• racism
• colour-blind
• race card
• White injury
• immigration

Acknowlegements

The authors would like to thank Clare Stacey for her feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.