This dissertation responds to the notion that the economic success and social integration of one imaginary figure, the “model minority,” can explain the downward mobility of another, the “white working class” in post-Brexit Britain. Through intersectional readings of Black and Asian British fiction written during and after Margaret Thatcher’s prime ministership, I examine the model minority myth as providing a racist explanation for rising inequality, but also as a burdensome imperative of neoliberal aspiration to which racialized British subjects are increasingly subject. I trace the origins of this exclusionary account of racialized belonging to the account in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses of the political possibilities resulting from the collapse of anti-racist solidarities under the sign of Black British identity in the 1980s. I show that the author’s non-fictional responses to the subsequent controversy known as the Rushdie Affair work to close off these possibilities, serving instead to justify Islamophobia one specific means by which racial neoliberalism functions as what David Theo Goldberg calls “racism without racism.” I develop this analysis of Islamophobia as form of racial neoliberalism by turning to two novels that depict coming of age for diasporic Muslim British women, contrasting Monica Ali’s Brick Lane as a normative narrative of feminist becoming through assimilation with Leila Aboulela’s Minaret, which complicates the agency assumed to be conferred on “Third World Women” who migrate to the Global North. In my third and final chapter, I trace the model minority trope across differences in Black and Asian British communities as evidence of the empty aspiration of “post-racial” Britain, contrasting the attempt in Gautam Malkani’s Londonstani to posit the figure of the “rudeboy” as an alternative “outsider” figure of aspiration, with Zadie Smith’s “insider” depiction of the social alienation that results from approaching the embodiment of this racialized ideal in NW. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation discusses the influence of neoliberalism—the idea that capitalism represents the ideal model of organization for every aspect of human life—on Black and Asian British writing from the 1980s to the present. In the context of mainstream analysis of the June 2016 Brexit vote as an expression of “white working class” disaffection with rising inequality, I focus on how coming-of-age narratives by Black and Asian writers complicate an unspoken implication of this popular explanation: that neoliberal reforms have unduly advantaged so-called “model” racial minorities. Through readings that emphasize how the Muslim and/as racialized protagonists of these texts experience the recoding of racism either in the covert guise of Islamophobia or through the aspirational idea that Britain is “post-racial,” I demonstrate the highly tenuous nature of what social and political belonging racialized subjects can find amid the increasing individualism of contemporary British society.

More people than ever before are living significant portions of their social lives online due to advancements in internet technology. Over the last few years, we have begun to see the most public discussions of racism increasingly occur online, to be later embedded in the public’s consciousness. It is therefore important for race critical scholars to observe how digital spaces affect racial discourse in the United States. Utilizing a race critical perspective, I explore comment section reactions to counter-framing articles to examine contemporary racial discourse. Through a discourse analysis, I find that counter-framing articles initiate the racial dialectic by inviting white racial frames, thereby structuring contemporary racial discourse. My research suggests race critical scholars should explore the internet as a racialized institution and a site of racial contestation. Race critical theorist must begin to grapple with how such a racialized institution will alter the experiences of racism in social life.

In the United States, the largest group of educators, historically and presently, are white middle-class women, yet there is a rising population of racially diverse students creating a persistent dissonance and disconnect between the culture of the white teacher and their students. In this study, I sought to discover how the racial identity development of novice white female educators evolved, given their common participation in the Teach for America program. Using the conceptual frameworks of critical race theory, critical feminist theory, and the body of scholarship in critical whiteness studies, I conducted a critical narrative inquiry of eight novice white female educators. From the participants’ stories, three themes emerged: (a) relationships matter; (b) the privilege to want something different; and (c) intersection of whiteness and power. Further analysis was conducted to address the ideas of race-consciousness building through defining moments and sustained connection, and white dominance through an ascription of power and an analysis of gender. This study represents an effort to address the phenomenon of white teacher dominance by listening to the voices of white educators who experienced race-based development. Ultimately, this study aimed to contribute to the scholarship that informs how white educators develop their own racial identities so as to not do additional harm and trauma to racialized communities.

Graphic Intimacies: Identity, Humor, and Trauma in Autobiographical Comics by Women of Color examines works of comics art about the lived experience of the comics’ creator. These graphic narratives address racialized difference and the construction of identity while also using humor to negotiate their narrations of traumatic events. I argue that these creators employ the structure of comics to replicate the fragmentary nature of memory. Comics allow for the representation of trauma as being intimately linked to corporeality. The comics medium allows creators to make visible and present fractured versions of the self, a product of traumatic fragmentation. Drawing traumatic memories becomes a symbolic enactment of transformation. Comics become a way of coping with the fragmentary nature of traumatic memory, permitting a consolidation of memory even when a totality is impossible. Graphic Intimacies examines representative texts by four autobiographical cartoonists: Lynda Barry, Belle Yang, MariNaomi, and Whit Taylor. Each of these cartoonists engages in critiques of social issues through the negotiation of a multilayered identity. For instance, Barry’s One Hundred Demons (2002) explores her identity as a white-passing Filipino American growing up in a low-income neighborhood. In Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale (2011), Yang a Taiwanese born Chinese American artist, tells the story of her father’s family in order to heal from the trauma of intimate partner abuse. Biracial Japanese American artist MariNaomi explores her disconnection from her Japanese heritage while chronicling her experiences working in Japanese-style hostess bars in Turning Japanese (2016).

Why did black southern migrants during the Great Migration not get off the train along the migratory corridor that connected the points of departure and arrival, i.e. the Jim Crow South and the urban North? How did midwestern small-towns and black America come to be understood as polar opposites? Based on archival and ethnographic research, this project answers these questions by disrupting grand narratives about the Great Migration and the Midwest: 1) it disrupts the idea of predefined destinations of southern black migrants by illustrating that not all wanted to settle in big cities; 2) it disrupts the midwestern whiteness by displaying resilience and resistance of minorities in the same landscape; and 3) it disrupts stereotypes of midwestern friendliness by uncovering the self-perceived understanding of midwestern hospitality of Hoosier communities that stands in stark contrast with the unwelcoming environment as experienced by outsiders. Together, the chapters in this dissertation record the racialized geographies of Indiana and provide a nuanced understanding of identity and belonging in the Midwest. Analysis of the data identifies cultures of exclusion prevalent in midwestern small towns.

Social work imagines itself as a site of goodness and justice. My thesis illustrates the ways in which commitments to the profession’s social justice-oriented ideals are ruptured when racialized social workers name the operation of racism within everyday sites of professional practice. I show how colonial and imperial constructions of helping (moral superiority and goodness) continue to shape the hegemonic scripts about the role and practices of social work, reinscribing white dominance in social work knowledge production. Historically, racialized bodies have been constituted as Others, subjects to be regulated, controlled and ‘saved’ within the colonial project. I examine the dilemmas that emerge when racialized Others become the helpers and attempt to perform a normative identity that is constructed through white dominance. In this study, I provide a detailed analysis of twenty-three semi-structured interviews with racialized social workers. I trace the production of the profession’s values and notions of good practice within their narratives. I specifically explore the moments in which ‘good’ practice and commitments to the values of the profession break down in everyday work with clients and co-workers. Racist encounters with clients appear as overwhelming occurrences within workers’ narratives, and a complex paradox is revealed: the discursive arrangements within social work that constitute good, social justice-oriented practice, are the very same discourses that disavow the operation of racism. Within these moments workers are left questioning whether or not they can be ‘good social workers’ because the act of naming racism appears to be incompatible with their commitments to the values that shape what is recognized as good social work practice. The narratives presented in this thesis point to the trespasses, erasures and individualizing discourses that secure whiteness at the exact moments in which race is made invisible. I contend that, when workers name racism, their very presence is destabilizing to a social work profession that needs to construct an image of itself as a site of goodness. Social work must examine the colonial continuities that construct contemporary practices, and to make visible the ways in which hegemonic scripts shaping justice and goodness reinstall whiteness and collude with racism.

Social work imagines itself as a site of goodness and justice. My thesis illustrates the ways in which commitments to the profession’s social justice-oriented ideals are ruptured when racialized social workers name the operation of racism within everyday sites of professional practice. I show how colonial and imperial constructions of helping (moral superiority and goodness) continue to shape the hegemonic scripts about the role and practices of social work, reinscribing white dominance in social work knowledge production. Historically, racialized bodies have been constituted as Others, subjects to be regulated, controlled and ‘saved’ within the colonial project. I examine the dilemmas that emerge when racialized Others become the helpers and attempt to perform a normative identity that is constructed through white dominance. In this study, I provide a detailed analysis of twenty-three semi-structured interviews with racialized social workers. I trace the production of the profession’s values and notions of good practice within their narratives. I specifically explore the moments in which ‘good’ practice and commitments to the values of the profession break down in everyday work with clients and co-workers. Racist encounters with clients appear as overwhelming occurrences within workers’ narratives, and a complex paradox is revealed: the discursive arrangements within social work that constitute good, social justice-oriented practice, are the very same discourses that disavow the operation of racism. Within these moments workers are left questioning whether or not they can be ‘good social workers’ because the act of naming racism appears to be incompatible with their commitments to the values that shape what is recognized as good social work practice. The narratives presented in this thesis point to the trespasses, erasures and individualizing discourses that secure whiteness at the exact moments in which race is made invisible. I contend that, when workers name racism, their very presence is destabilizing to a social work profession that needs to construct an image of itself as a site of goodness. Social work must examine the colonial continuities that construct contemporary practices, and to make visible the ways in which hegemonic scripts shaping justice and goodness reinstall whiteness and collude with racism.

The colonial formation and imagination of the Canadian nation and its citizenry has historically been rooted in processes of racial inclusion and exclusion. This thesis considers the ways in which the historical exclusionary process of citizenship manifests within today’s “War on Terror” through the language of national security. The analysis focuses on the discourses of two former Conservative bills: Bill C-24 – Strengthening the Canadian Citizenship Act and Bill C-51 – Anti-terrorism Act. Mobilized through a critical race perspective, my thesis documents first, the narratives that are told, and second, the discursive strategies that are used, to construct those deserving and undeserving of inclusion. My findings demonstrate that the ideal nation and its ideal citizens, who are deserving of inclusion within the nation, are fundamentally constructed in Whiteness. Meanwhile, the threatening ‘Other’, who is to be excluded and expelled from the nation, is imagined as a racialized Muslim, Arab and brown terrorist in the “War on Terror”. By examining their respective parliamentary debates, my research reveals how the political discourses utilized in both bills uphold the racial exclusionary mechanisms of citizenship. As such, my research speaks to the evolving relationship between citizenship, national security, surveillance, and securitization by demonstrating how citizenship is used as a tool within the broader security regime of the state to fight the “War on Terror”.

This thesis examines the ways in which Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s 2016 album Lemonade works as a culturally significant text in the realm of popular media. Situated within Black feminist theoretical concepts of freedom practices and Black Feminist Love Politics, the thesis argues that Lemonade mobilizes stylistic and strategic intertextual references to develop a transmedia storyworld within a paradigm of resistance to, and healing from, white supremacist histories. Such intertextual information exists within the musical, lyrical, visual, poetic, and transmedia domains of Lemonade. The transmedia extensions include interviews, live performances, speeches, social media posts, and photoshoots. Combined with theories from Black feminist thought of freedom practices—which include talking back (bell hooks 1989), dark sousveillance (Simone Browne 2015), and interruptions to whiteness (DiAngelo 2011)— and Black Feminist Love Politics (Jennifer Nash 2013), the intertextual data present in Lemonade can be analyzed using methodologies from the field of popular musicology (intertextuality and mediality).

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