The question of bourgeois racism

In this chapter I again address the question of class variation with regard to European reactions to immigrants, this time by discussing bourgeois interactions with and interpretations of African and Asian immigrants in Palermo. This contrast with working-class views: (1) permits a disaggregation of public attitudes otherwise seen as homogeneous; (2) points to the class bases of divergent views and actions; and (3) reveals different capacities for public discourse and political action. The findings show, in fact, highly contrastive and class-specific views on immigration, racism, and anti-racism. Against the often inconsistent, locally informed, ambivalent, and stubbornly pessimistic working-class views, bourgeois Palermitans espouse a sophisticated pro-immigrant, anti-racist position, grounded in universalist ideologies.

I explain these divergent views on immigration with reference to broad differences in class experience and consciousness. Tenuous security and class self-hatred on the one hand, and empathy born of shared poverty and emigration on the other, structure working-class ambivalence. By contrast, the unhesitating enthusiasm of the bourgeois high-school and university students for paradigms favorable to immigrant rights and recognition stems from the equanimity born of a relatively secure class position, knowledge of generally accepted views on race transmitted through higher education, membership of self-styled progressive circles in a national political culture dominated by the rhetoric of anti-racism, and aspects of local culture and history deemed pertinent to these paradigms. As regards the form of these divergent views, little education and the lack of access to influential public discourse undermine the consistency of working people's opinions. Among the high-school and university students, by contrast, higher education, familiarity with paradigmatic interpretations of immigration, in particular, and political discourse, in general, all contribute to the consistency and sophistication of expression.