Europe and the narrative of the ‘true racist’: thinking anti-discrimination law through race

Abstract

The article starts from the assumption that the slow and unsatisfactory development of caselaw concerning racism in Europe needs to be addressed engaging with wider political and policy developments that have shaped the silence about race and racism. I propose an analysis of political texts, reports and academic literature developed since the mid-1980s, that approached the discussion and negotiation of legal provisions that prohibit racial discrimination. The analysis aims to unravel the reproduction of the mythical foundation of modern law that erases coloniality and institutional racism that is, it erases the embeddedness of race in the formation of the West. In this context, racism is seen as an exteriority and a deviation and, therefore, policy and legal provisions remain largely unscrutinised in their complicity with the reproduction of racism.