Can we unlearn racism?

Europe does not have a good track record when it comes to addressing racism—or even admitting it exists. Despite the pervasiveness of ethnic profiling, police brutality and discrimination on the housing and labor markets, countries struggle to tackle racism. In Can We Unlearn Racism? Jacob Boersema uses South Africa as a lens to understand this challenge. What does a small white minority in Africa teach Europeans about how to face a racist past? Boersema argues that it requires nothing less than unlearning racism: confronting the shame of a racist past, acknowledging privilege, and, to varying degrees, rethinking notions of white nationalism. Drawing on interviews with a cross-section of White South Africans, Boersema depicts the limits and possibilities of individual and collective transformation. He also reveals that the process of unlearning racism can give rise to white identity politics—a new form of racism born out of misappropriatingantiracist strategies. In this event we will investigate a question that should be at the forefront of every society’s collective consciousness.

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