Psychology of Racism in the Light of the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Webinar Series

Psychology of Racism in the Light of the Black Lives Matter Movement

Racism is a shapeshifter. Elusive, material for comedians, banal and brutal all at once, it is everywhere and apparently a figment of the psyche. Coloured by specificities of local contexts, yet part of everyday global experience of black lives, we cannot understand the forms, changes and effects of racism without devoting attention to histories, politics and economies of place, region, and the globe.

In comparison to racism, struggles for antiracism in many places have appeared to be tiresomely constant, single-minded in pursuit of their objectives. At the same time, while over the years there have been scholars who have sought to make their disciplines antiracist or use their knowledge to fight racism, racist knowledge seems to have many lives. This country has produced several psychologists who have devoted their intellects and practice to understanding and fighting racism in psychology and society, as well as making psychology antiracist. In 1994, with the birth of what was meant to be a truly new nonracial, nonsexist and egalitarian society, many antiracist and other progressive psychologists in the country, not unlike antiapartheid activists and progressive scholars of all stripes, apparently felt that racism was dead, or on the way to its graves, at least in the country. It is of significance that 1994 was also the year of the birth of a new nonracial organisations for psychologists and psychology students, after decades of a whites-only colonial and apartheid psychology organisations.

In this webinar, leading psychologists who work on race and racism, patriarchy, sexuality, class, and violence will offer their insights on how we are to understand racism today, in the country and elsewhere, interrogating the possibilities and challenges of overcoming racism locally and globally, in daily life, universities, and work environments. The reflections on the past and futures of racism take place in the shadow of the public murder of George Floyd in the United States, and the death of Collins Khosa in South Africa, but also the hope ushered in by the sustained protests led by the Black Lives Matter campaign, and similar social movements in other parts of the world. Finally, the discussion will interrogate the courses and new shapes that racism has taken in the country, bringing into conversation different forms of racism, including scientific, discursive and institutional and interpersonal racisms, and their intersections with sexisms, nationalisms, and antipoor structures and policies.