What Is Nanoracism?
An Answer from a Philosopher from Cameroon
Achille Mbembe/Wikimedia Commons
As Europe (and other parts of the world) slowly transforms into something like a dull icicle, we might amuse ourselves with nanoracism—a type of narcotherapy that is somewhat like a shrunken owl with a powerful, hooked beak.
What is nanoracism, if not a particular intoxicating type of prejudice based on skin color, expressed through seemingly harmless everyday gestures, often without any apparent reason, clearly unconscious remarks, light teasing, hints, slips of the tongue, jokes, and silences? However, do not these seemingly innocuous silences subtly unmask a malevolent agenda rooted in the conscious aspiration to crush, stigmatize, cripple, degrade, and defame those deemed not one of us?
Achille Mbembe (b. 1957) is a contemporary Cameroonian philosopher and historian. He is known for coining the term ‘necropolitics’, which is a concept related to Michel Foucault's idea of biopolitics.
