Race and Racism: A Reply to Sami Timimi

Dear Sami Timimi

I thought I would write a letter because, paradoxically, what I have to say is not ‘personal’. It is just that your paper (BJP 13(2): 183-92, ) was the latest in a long line of psychoanalytic examinations of racism which I believe are simply wrong, and I would like to tell you why. The Kleinian approach you follow, involving the ‘splitting and projection’ or ‘paranoid-schizoid’ model, is now the dominant form in which racism is understood. Unfortunately, the prevalence of this view has had the effect of inhibiting rather than facilitating thinking about the problem. Neither does it account for the facts.

Of course you must be aware of this in practice. When dealing with the cited case material you bring in a wealth of oedipal and other factors which the paranoidschizoid model misses. The case material breaks the bounds of the theoretical framework with which you open your paper. So why cling to the theory?

I think we would both agree that racism must be a complicated and composite structure with different aspects. Otherwise what's the point of analysis - which consists of taking things apart? Each of these aspects are themselves complex structures. The way in which other people ‘disappear’ from view and their humanity is lost sight of. How does it happen; what mechanisms are involved? The way imaginary fears are conjured up and seem to be real - for instance, the phantasy of being raped by a black man, or the idea of threats to the ‘purity of blood’. Where do the fears come from, and how do they achieve their sense of reality? The way we blame other people - seek someone to blame - and the connection to feelings of humiliation or guilt we may be trying to expunge. In what contexts does this become socially acceptable and generalized? The process of altering reality in order to preserve a feature that seems to be essential to our psychical well-being, as the racist may preserve illusions about his own history or cultural heroes; what are the anxieties t