ABOUT THE BLOG

How are the ‘old’ racializations of antisemitism and anti-Roma still present and active today and how have they changed?

Welcome to our blog! Or rather, our ‘non-blog’ as we will not continuously update the pages like a traditional blog. Here we will attempt to deconstruct the different processes of antisemitism and anti-Roma racialization occurring across Europe to show the world how endemic, systemic and problematic this issue is. We are a group of students from the Social Sciences faculty at KU Leuven, taking a course on Race, Ethnicity and the Postcolonial Condition with Prof. Fadil. We believe this blog is important because we hope to share with you what we ourselves have learnt about the discrimination of minorities in Europe, focusing on the Jewish and Romani people as well as Muslims. We hope to be able to combat the stereotypes surrounding these groups, and to provide thought-provoking posts on the subject.

This non-blog focuses on answering the question: How are the ‘old’ racializations of antisemitism and anti-Roma still present and active today and how have they changed? In order to tackle the different areas this question touches upon, such as history, politics, culture, media etc., we have divided the blog into three subsections: Origins of Othering, Boundaries and Imaginaries, Popular Culture. To understand how the racialization of minorities works in society today, it is important to look at the historical contexts behind our question. We attempt to get to the roots of this racism to see how antisemitic and anti-Roma discourses and discrimination functioned in the past. The insights from this research help us tackle a range of topics in the Boundaries and Imaginaries section. Here the focus is on uncovering systems of discrimination in Europe, and identifying where Jewish and Romani communities, and other minorities such as Muslims, stand in relation to the nation state: often on the margins and under attack in politics and the media. These structures of violence towards minority groups in Europe are also visible in popular culture. The third section of the blog is crucial to revealing how ‘normal’ and everyday discrimination against minorities is, hidden behind seemingly innocent displays and rhetoric. This blog hopes to open the eyes of its readers and raise awareness of the processes of ‘othering’ presently at work in Europe and beyond. We want to help contribute to a change in perceptions and attitudes towards minorities. We hope you will find our non-blog informative and inspiring!