Articles by: Gavin Lewis

'Our' sexism versus 'their' sexism? Since the neo-imperialist wars on Middle Eastern homelands and elsewhere began, race relations in Western Europe have deteriorated markedly. One manifestation of this has been cyclical moral panics generated around the wearing of the niqab. France banned the public wearing of the garment. The Dutch cabinet approved a partial public ban 'for security reasons'. In Britain Birmingham Metropolitan College tried, unsuccessfully - after protests from its students - to ban…

Michel Foucault has written at length about the birth of modern systems of power. He has argued that zonal or compartmental - ised spatial systems have evolved from the surveillance mechanisms of state and corporate power. Regimes have developed that police and regulate the meanings given off from the bodies of those victimised by power, including their many ethnic differences. These regimes can vary from space to space, identity to identity. Or sometimes, in order…

In June 2015 the parents of Rachel Dolezal gave an interview with Good Morning America, the function of which was to emphasise that their daughter's ethnicity was actually white. Ms Dolezal wears her hair in a loose perm and, arguably, cultivates a dark complexion. The resulting avalanche of corporate-media condemna tion directed at Ms Dolezal was in stark disproportion to her prominence in society. Ms Dolezal had been local president of the Spokane, Washington, chapter…