Is Free Speech Racist? (Debating Race)

The question of free speech is never far from the headlines and frequently declared to be in crisis. Starting from the observation that such debates so often focus on what can and cannot be said in relation to race, Gavan Titley asks why racism has become so central to intense disputes about the status and remit of freedom of speech. Is Free Speech Racist? moves away from recurring debates about the limits of speech to instead interrogate the use of the principle of free speech in today’s multicultural and intensively mediated societies. This involves tracing the ways in which free speech has been mobilized in far-right politics, in the recycling of ‘race realism’ and other outdated forms of knowledge, and in nationalist identity politics. Where there is intense political contestation and public confusion as to what constitutes racism and who gets to define it, ‘free speech’ has been adopted as a primary mechanism for validating, amplifying and re-animating racist ideas and racializing claims. As such, free speech ideas reveal much about the ongoing life of race and racism in contemporary society.

• | Author: Gavan Titley
• | Publisher: Polity
• | Publication Date: August 24, 2020
• | Number of Pages: 144 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 1509536159
• | ISBN-13: 9781509536153