Cultural Racism and the Crisis of White Identity

In her book based on the Frankfurt Adorno Lectures, renowned philosopher Linda Martín Alcoff examines the genealogy of racism in modernity and its manifestations in the present day. She centres her analysis around colonialism, with respect to which she considers the complex relationship between racialized identities, history, and culture.

Alcoff emphasizes the historical contingency of all forms of subjectivation and takes aim at what she calls »cultural racism«, in order to dismantle the idea once and for all that there could be such a thing as cultural supremacy.

Such a cultural supremacy, argues Alcoff, is a myth of white identity, whose current crisis is fuelling right-wing movements in Europe and North America, which see migrants as the root of virtually all social ills. But it also reinforces the trend toward ethno-nationalism in parts of the Global South. But how do we counter these trends? The first step, explains Alcoff, is to face up to the truth of history. A book that is very much in tune with the times.