Adapting to post-racialism? Definitions of racism in non-governmental organization advocacy that mainstreams anti-racism

Theorizing post-racialism in Finland

The post-racial has been theorized as the contemporary modality of race (Goldberg, 2015), departing from a critique of beliefs which reduce racism to a historical problem within sinister regimes that produced apartheid, Holocaust or Jim Crow. Scholarly critique that recognizes the historicity of racisms or racialized oppressions has highlighted how racialized distinctions – historically connected to pseudo-scientific race theories – are reproduced through current discourses on culture and securitization, for instance. Varying expressions of racism are fuelled by the race idea, which arranges individuals, groups, as well as social and cultural practices into a world divided as the West and the rest.

‘Post-racial’ is used to label a common line of thought that shares the consensus of racism’s historical horrors, but completely disconnects the past from the supposedly racism-free present (see Lentin, 2016). If the effects of the race ¹ idea are repeatedly dismissed, it becomes easy to perceive non-racism or even anti-racism as innate characteristics of Western, democratic nation-states (Lentin, 2011). Racism, then, begins to seem like an exception, a historical vestige from less civilized times (Goldberg, 2009: 152) or an abnormality that can exist outside the regular ranks of society, exercised only by extremists (Goldberg, 2009: 360). In particular, racism perceived as exceptional undermines efforts to analyse systematic or structural racism. In Goldberg’s (2015) words, ‘(i)n neoliberal spirit, the post-racial individualizes responsibility’ (p. 62).

Post-racial tendencies not only shape articulations of racism: Lentin’s (2011, 2016) and Pitcher’s (2009) work on anti-racisms demonstrates how post-racial thinking cuts across ‘anti-racist’ approaches and, concurrently, how through repeating the understanding that we have overcome racism, anti-racism becomes an easily adoptable label. Partly for this reason, Hesse (2010) calls post-racialism ‘the political horizon of racism’s depoliticization’ – limited conceptions of racism undermine its potential as a critical tool (p. 155).

Having said that, it is necessary to pay attention to terminology and its contextualization. Post-racial as a critical term refers not to the past but the afterlife of race (Goldberg, 2015). Emphasizing the significance of race, this critique regards the absence of explicitly recognizing race as contributing to reproducing, through masking, social inequalities. I will not dwell on Nordic debates about the assumed foreignness, absence or (in)utility of race as a research concept (see Hübinette and Lundström, 2011). Instead, I maintain that explicitly addressing race and/or racialization is a way to recognize a historical disparity and seek to transform the ways in which it continues to shape social realities.

However, it would be too simplistic to conflate different contexts and it is necessary to pay attention to how racism has (not) been addressed in Finnish societal debates. For instance, it is not accurate to claim that the Finnish/Nordic anti-immigration racist reasoning in its denial of racism (see Keskinen, 2012) plunges us back ‘in time to the period before “institutional racism”, either in Carmichael and Hamilton’s [1967] or MacPherson’s [1999] terms, had become serious paradigms’ (Garner, 2014: 418). This falsely suggests that measures against (or even the acknowledgment of) institutional racism in Finland or in the Nordic countries are comparable with discussions in the United States’ Black Power movement or the scrutiny of institutional practices in the delayed aftermath of Stephen Lawrence’s murder in the United Kingdom. Although known for their historical commitment to egalitarianism, the Nordic welfare regimes have hardly addressed racial inequalities (Keskinen et al., 2009).

Particularly in Finland, racism has remained unacknowledged in mainstream societal debates for a relatively long time (Puuronen, 2011: 65), even in comparison with the other Nordic countries (Hübinette and Lundström, 2011). A post-racial narrative of overcoming racism does not describe the common but false perception that racism is a recent phenomenon in Finland, which I will soon discuss more thoroughly. Yet, as Keskinen (2014) has argued, it is not possible to overlook the critical theorizing of the post-racial: even though the term itself does not describe a Nordic context, the effects of the race idea have shaped and continue to shape the Finnish society. In my analysis of the scope of one anti-racist paradigm, I make use of this theorization in order to map its limits.

(Anti-)racism in Finland

The term racism began to figure in Finnish political and media debates as late as the 1990s, after a change in the migration pattern. Migration to Finland increased considerably during the last three decades (although, compared to the Nordic neighbours, the number of foreign-born people remains moderate). Therefore, multiculturalism has been viewed as a recent development. According to Suurpää (2002: 13–15), terms like ‘racism’ and ‘tolerance’ needed to be borrowed from abroad in the 1990s, and racism was addressed in connection to harsh attitudes and violent acts against newly arrived migrants (see Puuronen, 2011: 195–203).

Nevertheless, the narrative of the 1990s as the beginning of Finnish multiculturalism or a recent awakening to racism should be treated with caution. This narrative dismisses historical migrations and the historical presence of different minorities, reproducing the illusion of a White and homogeneous nation-state (see Rastas, 2014), which, I argue, also overlooks both indisputable histories of racism and the struggles against it. Histories like Finnish Roma lobbying for ratification of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in the early 1970s (Virolainen, 1994) and solidarity to or identification with Civil Rights and anti-apartheid movements (Virolainen, 1994: 97; Vuorela, 2009: 25) do not fit into this narrative.

Although the master-narratives of the Finnish nation-state dismiss racism as a historical structure, critical scholarship has shown that racial thinking is and was integral within Finnish society. For instance, derogatory racial categorizations of people of African descent appeared in Finnish-language newspapers and dictionaries even before the establishment of the nation-state in 1917 (Rastas, 2012), and similar notions of a racial other, linked to a colonial worldview, were attached to minorities like the Roma (Urponen, 2010: 115–120). While such views have undoubtedly shaped societal practices, the derogatory representations themselves have also not been exorcised. For instance, during the first decade of the 21st century, the utilization of blackface for commercial purposes created a heated debate – however, this largely focused on defending, not condemning, the ‘nostalgic’ representation (Rossi, 2009). Meanwhile, survey results speak of the high prevalence of experiences of racism (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), 2009).

Since 2008, racism has increasingly been in the spotlight in public debates, not least because of the establishment and mobilization of anti-immigration groups (see Keskinen, 2012; Mäkinen, 2016). Vocal anti-immigration and anti-Islam arguments provoked demands to publicly condemn racism in them. Coincidentally, the NGO field has explicitly committed to anti-racism (see Alemanji and Mafi, 2016; Kivijärvi, 2014). Furthermore, intensified activist efforts to voice Black or other racialized experiences are gradually becoming noticed in the mainstream media (Seikkula, 2015). In other words, the materials I analysed are situated in, and contribute to, a phase where racism is increasingly recognized as a societal problem. Yet, it would be an exaggeration to claim that anti-racism is adopted as a normative stand in Finland. In recent political debates around the condemnation of hate speech, racism and anti-racism have been counterposed as ‘the two extremes’.

Studying conceptions of racism in anti-racist NGO campaigns

The data analysed are the output of anti-racist NGO initiatives. Included are all nation-wide NGO initiatives published from 2010 to 2014 that explicitly commit to anti-racism or opposing racism. The materials were promoted via social media or during the annual European Action Week against Racism – which Finnish NGOs have increasingly shown interest in during the last decade – and during similar occasions. Because the motivation for this article is to explore ways in which racism is discussed, I have not included more general initiatives promoting multiculturalism, which are sometimes also understood as anti-racist responses.

The primary objects of my analysis are guidebooks, information leaflets, collection of posters, websites and videos produced by the NGOs. The analysed 26 items are by All Our Children, Finnish Peace Education Institute, Finnish Refugee Council, the cultural association Kulttuurikameleontit, Plan Finland, Save the Children, RASMUS – The National Network Against Racism, Show Racism the Red Card – Finland, The Finnish Red Cross, The Guides and Scouts of Finland, The Association for Promoting Multiculturality Walter, as well as a joint anti-discrimination initiative Normit nurin! by the national LGBTI rights association and students’ unions. The majority of the items were developed for specific NGO campaigns promoting anti-racism. Some, like No Hate Speech or Show Racism the Red Card, are European collaborations. Since 2013, several Finnish NGOs have also collaborated with each other through the Red Cross-coordinated Against racism! umbrella project. The materials quote each other within and beyond collaborations, illustrating that the data comprehensively represent the bulk efforts of Finnish NGO’s advocacy work against racism. In addition, I also conducted participatory observation in 12 events arranged by different NGOs in 2013–2015 to distribute the materials analysed here.

The NGOs behind the materials range from well-known and established third-sector non-profits like Save the Children to smaller organizations, but all the actors can be described as having close relations to the state through their funding, for example. This distinguishes the approaches analysed here from more confrontational or intersectional differences embracing grassroots initiatives. ² The data were produced during intensified anti-immigration mobilization in Finland, and possibly, to some extent, as a response to it. ³

I followed Bacchi’s (2009) ‘What is the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) approach to analyse the data. WPR is foremost a method for policy analysis, but it provides a comprehensive toolkit for observing the construction of social problems through their suggested solutions, beyond policy analysis. Following ideas advanced by Bacchi, I interpreted the promotion materials as socially constitutive speech acts that shape and are being shaped by discourses on (anti-)racism. In the analysis, I focused on the racism the materials set out to tackle: what kinds of practices are recognized as racism, where racism occurs, who is affected by it, what are its suggested causes and what are the suggested anti-racist measures. My participatory observation notes from the events guide my reading as they provided a deepened insight into themes relevant to the analysis.

I considered the different items to be texts and recognized their role as promotion materials designed to be impactful and easily accessible. However, as racial categorizations often lean on visual clues but have no fixed meanings, discussing visual material also requires interpretation. My choice to employ the categories ‘Black’ and ‘White’ reflects the binaries that underpin understandings of race and racism in the data.

In the analysis, I focused on descriptions of concrete practices, situations or deeds labelled as racist, and in doing so, identified three parallel problem-definitions that situate racism in a Finnish context in distinct ways. Racism is described as an anomaly operating in the margins of society, as a universal phenomenon of the human psyche, or as an abstraction within invisible social structures. Before going further, I will discuss some general observations in regard to the data.

Mainstreaming anti-racism

The overall objective of the analysed anti-racist advocacy is to make the general public recognize racism. The brochures’ bright colours and smiling pictures imply a conformist tone. One anti-racist Action Week event handed out roses to passers-by to convey their message. In other words, this type of advocacy shares many features with what Malmsten (2008) terms association-driven anti-racism, characterized also by collaboration with the state institutions like schools. Furthermore, instead of adapting an antagonistic attitude towards racists, advocacy focuses on awareness-raising and aims at engaging people with the anti-racist agenda. In the majority of cases, the recipient is assumed to be a White, that is, native-speaking, Finnish-born, Christian or secular Finn. This is implied in descriptions like ‘not all Muslims find religion to be the most important thing in life’ (Laaja, 2013: 7), ⁴ or suggestions that youth workers, not positioned as possible targets of racism, ‘might not grasp racism, as they might consider it as a joke among the kids’ (Kanninen and Markkula, 2011: 53). Therefore, the materials should be understood as mainstreaming, making advocacy against racism known, appealing and easy for a White general public.

However, this does not mean that mainstreaming simply overlooks the perspectives of people who experience racism. Instead, the problem-definitions, ranging from individualizing racism to attempts to portray a structural problem, showcase different degrees of incorporating and (not) listening to such perspectives.

By and large, the anti-racism mainstreaming agenda attracts actors whose work is related to adolescents’ rights. The majority of NGOs campaigning against racism work to support the rights of children and young people. Adolescents are perceived both in need of anti-racist education and possibly to have a role in solving the problem through encouragement to create their own anti-racist statements. Thus, many of the materials primarily address young people or their educators (like teachers or parents). Although teachers and youth workers are authorities by vocation, advocacy is directed at private individuals and it emphasizes individual attitudes and personal responsibilities. Furthermore, the (potential) victims of racism are often portrayed as children, and the harmfulness of racism is explained with a reference to a child’s special need for protection: ‘Adults have a great responsibility in intervening in racism. Experiences of racism can have a profound role in how a child or a young person builds their identity …’ (Red Cross, n.d.).

The focus on children is also shared by NGOs whose niche is not youth work. For instance, the Finnish Red Cross, a general non-profit, has picked children’s wellbeing as the core message in their campaign (see section ‘Racism in everybody’s beliefs’). The youth-focus is possibly related to the fact that the youngest age groups in Finland are the most diverse. In Finland, children, youth and schools have also been the particular focus of academic work on racism, and Youth Studies scholars in particular should be credited for advancing research on racism.

The centrality of another focal theme – migration – becomes evident through glossaries provided in the materials. The glossaries can be read as an attempt to domesticate anti-racism since anti-racist vocabulary hardly exists in Finnish (Rastas, 2014). The terminology introduced focuses more or less extensively on words related to migration. Linking racism to migration responds to the anti-immigration racist argumentation in the heart of public debates on racism. Meanwhile, technical explanations given to terms like (im)migrant, refugee, integration and reception centre imply that multicultural governing and immigration control are anti-racism’s given field. Consequently, racial logics or racism in governmental practices related to migration appear unthinkable (see Lentin, 2016: 43), enabling the state with its institutional practices to appear as a neutral background for racism and anti-racism.

Almost all the materials engage in a discussion on defining racism, with the exception of those in which a single slogan, for example, ‘Show Racism the Red Card’, constitutes the message. The almost univocal definition sees racism as ‘positioning a group or an individual as inferior’ due to a combination of the following attributes: (skin) colour, culture, mother tongue, ethnic origin, ethnic background, background and religion. This possibly reflects a need to expand understandings of racism beyond cherishing pseudo-biological ideas of race, and therefore, the definition is perhaps a response to efforts to question racism’s existence. In any case, the wide acceptance of this definition provides little insight into how and to whom this inferiorization happens. Instead, the concrete meanings of racism become evident through examples provided in the materials.

Exceptional racism

As campaign titles like Against racism! and No to Racism suggest, the core message in many of the materials is to condemn racism. To (encourage to) repeat a slogan against racism draws a boundary, whether or not it succeeds in fostering anti-racist practices. ⁵ Those against racism are demarcated in ‘a neat distinction between “the racists” and “the anti-racists”’ (Pitcher, 2009: 11). The first problem-definition makes use of this clear-cut distinction through instructions, stories, videos and comic strips that highlight racist symbols and deeds and encourages acting against them. The idea that racism is anchored in easily distinguishable instances implies that it is an exception in a non-racist social reality.

First, it should be acknowledged that the need for counter-action has been addressed in Finnish media debates. In 2012, testimonies by two women of colour, and the discussion that followed, shone a spotlight on certain forms of racism. Two leading newspapers published a letter to the editor by 14-year-old student Rebecka Holm and a story by journalist Umayya Abu-Hanna, both of which addressed repeated racist encounters in public and how racism is normalized in society. Holm in particular stressed that the public do not intervene in racist attacks. She was awarded recognition by the Red Cross as a ‘brave forerunner’, and both stories sparked lively discussions in Finland.

Some NGOs continued the discussion initiated by Abu-Hanna and Holm. The Finnish Refugee Council’s (2013) ‘seven true stories on racism’ are placed on a continuum with ‘… many stories on racist harassment, but also positive examples of courageous responses by victims and bystanders intervening in the situation’ (Finnish Refugee Council, 2013). At the same time, the examples stage racism as compartmentalized scenes with distinguishable roles. ‘Eye-witnesses’, ‘victims’ and ‘racists’ are also presented as intrinsic components of racism in the Against racism! workshop format. In a workshop I attended, racism was conceived of as a situation with a clear beginning and end, perpetrated by a racist against a victim in which eyewitnesses can intervene. While the implied clear-cut definition of racism strictly condemns racism, it depends on an interpretation underpinned by eventness (Lentin, 2016), a focus on acts that stick out as non-acceptable behaviour.

Eventness builds upon specific roles. In All Our Children’s (2013) video, a Black child protagonist is first excluded from football practice and then harassed by two White adults without anyone intervening. He is upset by the harassment and bystanders’ ignorance. The viewer is shown an ideal solution as the child imagines the silent crowd of White bystanders steps up and defends him from the harassers. The video urges the ignorant to confront racism and give their support to the victim, which underscores the importance of mobilizing the silent majority. Yet, in this context, pinpointing racism requires the figure of ‘the racist’ (cf. Ahmed, 2012: 149–150). ⁶

In the video, racism is ultimately identified through the perpetrators, who are hanging out at a pedestrian underpass. Racism is presented as unshaven, messy haired and dressed in sweatpants; it is coded as the underclass. The silent majority, guilty in their ignorance but imbued with the potential to intervene, is easily distinguishable from the perpetrators by their choice of tidier attire. In other words, racism is connected to class disadvantage. If ‘the racist’ is ‘easily discarded … [as someone] who does not represent a cultural or institutional norm’ (Ahmed, 2012: 150), the position of an ally or an anti-racist is underpinned by respectable middle-classness. Seeing racism as ‘a deficit of certain “lower” people’ (Mäkinen, 2016: 11) enables those who present as respectable, as well as society as a whole, to distance themselves from it.

The exceptionality of racism is also discussed with reference to extremist ideologies in five of the analysed items. Booklets and videos educate audiences to identify and remove racist symbols from the streets or online environments. The well-known metanarrative of the Holocaust as the ultimate example of racism (Goldberg, 2009) explains why banning Swastikas and references to Hitler requires no clarification. Meanwhile, this metanarrative tethers racism to a historical deviance that occurred outside of Finland: ‘“They are not humans” has been a justification for genocides’ (Jyrkiäinen et al., 2011: 77). Here, racism manifests as past horrors contained in symbols, words and extremist acts that can simply be erased.

Racism in everybody’s beliefs

‘Racism and racist acts often derive from fear and prejudices. All human beings have prejudices’ (The Guides and Scouts of Finland, n.d.).

Inherent and inevitable prejudices are among the key explanations for why there is racism provided in the data; the aforementioned second problem-definition describes racism as a manifestation of prejudices. As the quote above illustrates, racism is seen as deriving from human emotions, which in turn challenges the framing of racism as exceptional. The discussion on prejudices positions the reader as someone who might also have racist prejudices. At the same time, this universalizing approach conflates all prejudices.

Different prejudices are portrayed as interchangeable and equivalent; one example is a series of teenagers’ testimonies about (overcoming) prejudices (Laaja, 2013). The testimonies are presented alongside speakers’ portraits and parallel to each other, implying a symmetry between the stories. Rosita, who is wearing a traditional Finnish Roma dress, explains how security guards falsely accused her of shoplifting but then admitted wrongdoing. Blond-haired, blue-eyed Joel tells an anecdote about a Black football player who initially faced prejudices, then gained recognition from (presumably White) fans after his good performance. Hijab-wearing, brown-eyed Huda explains she was once approached by a skinhead she assumed to be a racist, but then after learning about anti-racist skinhead culture, she overcame her prejudices. Nothing in the presentation suggests some testimonies reflect more prevalent patterns of discrimination while others are minor: in reality, discrimination experienced by Finnish Roma and Finnish Somalis ⁷ is alarmingly common (FRA, 2009; Non-Discrimination Ombudsman, 2014), while stigmatizing subcultures can hardly be seen as an equivalent societal disparity.

Equating different prejudices with each other is possible when the historical, geographical and political context is left unacknowledged (Lentin, 2016: 40). Conflating prejudices also implies that prejudices shape the daily lives of Huda, Joel and Rosita – or the football player in Joel’s story, who, like Rosita, had to prove his trustworthiness – in similar ways. That is, the discussion of prejudices reduces racism to idle, unfortunate but common misconceptions while assuming racial equality or a social reality without racial hierarchies. In doing so, the assumed equality lays the ground for a discussion of White victimhood and ‘reverse racism’.

In the Finnish Red Cross’ video, an older White couple indoctrinates a White child (probably a grandchild) with racist prejudices. The scenes take place in a portrayal of White Finnish ‘normality’, replete with details that ooze petit bourgeois traditionality and orderly, established middle-classness (e.g. porcelain cups, cinnamon rolls, quality domestic appliances, a villa-neighbourhood). Consequently, the prejudiced White child refuses to play with a Black peer and is left alone, while the other children play together. The orderly middle-classness contrasts with the images of untidy, underclass racists discussed previously. Here, racism appears as misconceptions – and the primary victim is the White child. Portraying racism as damaging to (middle-class) White people, not because of the prejudices they face but because of the prejudices they have, differs from arguments for ‘reverse racism’ (Ware 2002: 273–274). Yet, making this the ultimate tragedy of racism recentres whiteness and White vulnerability. Furthermore, the video, like other discussions on prejudices, locates the problem, and the need for a change, within the individual psyche. This, in turn, reflects Goldberg’s (2009) observation about the neoliberal tendency to reduce racism to a question of personal morality, which implies that unfortunate misconceptions will be solved with more enlightened thinking.

In the discussion on prejudices, the assumption of profound equality is challenged only in very few cases. The R-sana booklet recognizes racialized privilege and power hierarchies only after identifying with a universalizing view of racism as prejudices. It first explains that people who have migrated to Finland have prejudices too, and ‘(a)lso members of a minority can be racist towards the majority’ (Kanninen and Markkula, 2011: 34). This position is complicated by acknowledging repeated experiences of racism, and by observing that ‘the majority population has the majoritarian power behind them’ (Kanninen and Markkula, 2011). I suggest that the negotiation implies an absence or neglect of a discourse, which addresses practices that systematically privilege some at the expense of others.

Racism in invisible structures

Paradoxically, the difficulty of addressing systemic practices is also characteristic of the meagre attempts to discuss structural racism, which is discussed infrequently in comparison to the other two problem-definitions. Some of the analysed texts name racism as ‘a structural problem’, for instance: ‘There can be invisible racist structures or practices in society that lead to inequality’ (Jyrkiäinen et al., 2011: 78). Recognizing the existence of inequality-producing practices implies that racism occurs beyond exceptional behaviour or the individual psyche. But what are these invisible racist structures? In the data, this is often not elaborated upon, which makes a clarifying example like ‘practices in the education system that prevent foreigners from attending’ (Jyrkiäinen et al., 2011) exceptional. In this case, like in many others, no anecdotes, comic strips or videos clarify the reality of the discriminatory practices – indeed, the structures remain invisible.

For the most part, acknowledging racism in societal structures does not translate to a recognition of concrete practices or an encouragement for action against them. In fact, the discussion follows the logic Lentin (2016) describes: acknowledging institutional or systemic racism does not lead to prosecutions equitable to those that focus on individual behaviour.

However, a handful of examples make an effort to describe racism as a part of cultural conventions in connection to specific patterns of thought. Three booklets (Älä oleta – Normit nurin!, 2013; Laaja, 2013; Walter, n.d.) targeting secondary schools briefly critique racialized distinctions or colonial worldviews. First, a discussion on terms like racialization and exoticization challenges distinctions like immigrant–Finn, which are otherwise taken for granted. Furthermore, the terms introduced question the presumed absence of racialized hierarchies that is present in other texts. Second, it is noted that the basic education curriculum fails to address Sami history, and school books depicting contemporary African cultures as historical examples imply hierarchical assumptions of primitivism. While the critique broadens discussions on racism to colonial worldviews and indigenous peoples’ rights in Finland, the discussion is also confined to a context reserved primarily for children and youth.

In fact, the general emphasis on adolescents plays a central role in the discussion on invisible structures that are addressed predominantly in youth work and school contexts. A guidebook for teachers (Walter, n.d.) brings up segregation in the labour market, a topic given a very marginal role in the data:

Who are we, the Finns, and do we have a fair representation of people for instance in schools and kindergartens as teachers, cleaning and other personnel, compared to the street view that we now have in Finland, particularly in the capital region? And do kids have enough diverse professional ‘idols’ to identify with? (p. 8)

The carefully laid words imply that there is not a proportional representation of people from different backgrounds or people of colour among the school staff. Discrimination in the labour market or within the education system does not appear as a problem per se but as a shortcoming for young people looking for role models. In the context of basic education, issues within adult power regimes appear possibly irrelevant. The focus on adolescents limits anti-racism to a sphere of minors, who rarely have official roles in society.

Conclusion

Competing definitions of racism are often at the core of debates on racism, and narrowing these definitions has been a central strategy to justify post-racial perspectives that deny racism (Lentin and Titley, 2011). The struggle over definitions is evident also in the anti-racist NGO advocacy that I term mainstreaming anti-racism. While the materials I analysed recognize racism beyond the generally rejected narrow definition, my analysis also shows the limits of addressing racism in mainstreaming advocacy.

I have identified three parallel problem-definitions that constitute the understandings of racism in NGO advocacy. The definitions first locate racism in disjointed, exceptional deeds and symbols that are strictly condemned; second, within the individual psyche as an outcome of universal human emotion; and third, within undefined and abstract invisible structures. In other words, the definitions portray racism mainly through individual deeds or attitudes isolated from the supposedly racism-free society. Here, mainstreaming has a dual meaning: the problematization of racism is made known to a White general public, but anti-racism is also presented as perfectly compatible with social structures and societal order. However, to a moderate extent, the image of a society free of racism is also challenged in the data.

Although the definitions of racism as an exception and a universal misconception function in opposite ways, ultimately, they (re)produce a similar logic. When racism is confined to unacceptable public behaviour by a classed marginal or to symbols that signify a commitment to Nazi ideology, everything else can be coded non-racist or anti-racist. In the case of universalizing racism, everyone is potentially caught up in prejudiced thoughts and can equally be positioned as a target and victim of racist misconceptions. This requires imagining a similar non-racist space as the one depicted around racist exceptions. In other words, instead of seeing acts and attitudes as cumulative and systematic expressions of a structure (cf. Essed, 1994), the first two problem-definitions individualize racism. At the same time, Whites, especially middle-class subjects, are provided with the opportunity to self-identify as non-racist or anti-racist subjects, as they are portrayed with unquestionable anti-racist potential. Similarly, the thematic emphasis on governmental categories of migration distances racism from the master-narratives of the nation-state, which have never portrayed migrants and migration as part of Finland, ultimately undermining the possibility of systemic racism. The third definition, which places racism within societal and cultural structures, potentially challenges the focus on isolated events. However, the discussion on structures remains either abstract or is limited by its focus on youth.

The focus on adolescents cuts across anti-racist advocacy. The future-oriented emphasis on the next generation can be seen as a strategic choice, since invoking a discourse on a child’s best interest is difficult to challenge. The focus on a group outside of adult power regimes also introduces passive victims, whose position in the receiving end of racist abuse cannot be contradicted even by a discussion that actively undermines the existence of racism (cf. Lentin and Titley, 2011: 52), and whose agency is easily left in the shadow of that of White anti-racists. Therefore, it could be said that with very few exceptions, mainstreaming anti-racism does not challenge the dominant (racial) order, and that the focus on children contributes to the depoliticization of anti-racist advocacy. It is unimaginable that, for instance, gender equality would be made into a youth-only issue. A focus on youth has also been emphasized in major pan-European initiatives – this, too, urges a reassessment of the political commitment to anti-racism.

My analysis of NGO advocacy also shows how the theorization of the post-racial modality of race and racism brings forward limitations and blind spots in an anti-racist agenda. The observed difficulty of addressing racism beyond disjointed acts and individual attitudes reflects post-racial themes. Yet, ‘post’ is not an indication of past significance here. While a post-racial fallacy of racial equality might contradict previous discussions on institutional racism in some contexts (cf. Goldberg, 2015), in the Finnish case, nothing suggests that assumed equality is a consequence of anti-racism’s success. Post-racial logic in a context that lacks a recognized anti-racist history does not threaten to compromise previous anti-racist achievements, but neither does the theorization of the post-racial limit to tracing imagined linear histories of progress. Instead, the theorization provides a language for developing an analysis of efforts to narrate (race and) racism as an absence – particularly applicable to contexts that see themselves as having nothing to do with race to begin with.

Finally, I have argued that recent anti-racist NGO advocacy is equipped with limited interpretations of racism. Yet, given it is possible that exposing a gap between unfulfilled anti-racist declarations and racist lived practices provides grounds for politicization (cf. Ahmed, 2012: 139–140), then the discursive space that the explicit discussion on racism creates can possibly be used for claiming both a more comprehensive understanding of racism, and appropriate measures to take against it. Exposing and filling any gaps will, however, require political labour. In other words, while NGO advocacy on its own might encourage more, much needed discussion on racism, without explicitly elaborating on racism as a structure, the discussion risks remaining tokenistic.