A post-racial world?

In 2008, the simple fact that Obama was elected president was interpreted as solid evidence that such a victory of diversity in the highest political institution of the United States would “automatically yield race-neutral practices” (Ostertag and Armaline, 2011). At the time, this idea of a postracial society was applauded by the French media and political elite. However, in contrast to popular claims that Obama’s election and presidency is an indicator that we have moved on to become post-racial societies where race and racism have become irrelevant, many scholars have demonstrated that systemic racism has persisted and evolved into a largely covert system that draws strength from its ability to be elusive (Ostertag and Armaline, 2011). As suggested by race scholars like Feagin and Bonilla-Silva, contemporary racism has “shape shifted” (Neubeck and Cazenave, 2001) into colorblind racism, a central ideological component of this new racism that emerged in the post-civil rights era.

In the context of France, this book has shown that the dominant ideological framework of colorblindness, prevailing in a post-racial world and postcolonial society, is very much part of a “white racial hegemony” (Neubeck and Cazenave, 2001) that helps contemporary racism endure in a more covert way, from which it gets its strength. And because policies (employment, housing, education, police) appear colorblind, they have remained largely unchallenged and unquestioned by the French political elite, even if they are called into question by social justice movements and organizations.

However, as this book has demonstrated, colorblind narrative assertions seem unrealistic and problematic because they are not only delusional when confronted with the recurring realities of systemic racism but because they also participate in the persistence of a colorblind racism by supporting a White racial framing of the issue.

Biologists have established that racial categories among humans do not exist, in the sense that there are no homogeneous human groups with intrinsic characteristics entirely different from and unequal to others that would define them as completely separate, biologically speaking, from other human groups. And although skin color has been used historically to distinguish human groups, it is only one marker among many others of geographic and historical affiliation.