Contesting racist talk in families: strategies used, and effects on family practices and social change

ABSTRACT

Differences of opinion between family members are familiar narratives for many people. When family tensions involve racist talk, how do family members navigate this? This paper asks: (1) What strategies do family members use to challenge racist talk within their own family? and (2) What effects do these strategies have on (a) on-going racist talk, (b) family practices and (c) broader social change around racism? In Australia, where this project was based, anti-racism campaigns often advocate for individual contestations of racism, but their effects on the structures of racism are not well known. This paper identifies four strategies used to challenge racist talk in families including (1) undertaking safe critique, (2) humour, (3) direct confrontation or violence and (4) reference to personal / familial experiences of racism. I found that individual contestations of racist talk within families may, at times, shift family practices (Morgan 2011) away from expressions of racism, or further the development of race literacy amongst some family members. However, this was very much a minority response to individual contestations of racist talk. To create social change, this paper highlights the critical need for activity that much more broadly seeks to dismantle racist structures and institutionalized racism.

KEYWORDS:

• Racism
• anti-racism
• families
• performativity
• bystander

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Ethics approval (ETH19-3643) was received from the University of Technology Sydney’s Human Research Ethics Committee.

2 Refers to the Northern Territory Emergency Response of June 2007, where the Australian Government suspended the Racial Discrimination Act to intervene in remote Aboriginal communities without warning or consultation.