Anti-Racist Language, Racial Perpetuation: How the EU Anti-Racism Action Plan (2020-2025) Frames and Perpetuates (Anti)-Racism

In response to global anti-racism movements such as Black Lives Matter, the European Commission published the Anti-Racism Action Plan in 2020, with the aim to fully implement it within five years. Building on existing EU-wide anti-racism legislation, the plan attempts to provide points of action that all EU-Member States are encouraged to follow. With the help of three theoretical schools of thought: 1) Critical Race Theory, 2) Intersectionality and 3) Postcolonial Theory, the thesis aims to unravel the meanings behind the way that (structural) racism is framed in the plan and how this contributes to the perpetuation of the issue. The Critical Discourse Analysis (hereafter CDA) approach reveals that the plan mostly defines racism along the lines of individual hatred, microaggressions and unequal treatment. The framing, therefore, fails to adequately combat the issue’s structural dimension. The recurring conflation between racism and racial discrimination in the plan’s attempt to provide points of action, further renders it ineffective. Due to the negligence of addressing the structural side of racism, the plan fails to provide a basis for structural change. The performative use of symbolic language in the EU Anti-Racism Action Plan, exemplifies broader implications on why anti-racism legislation usually fails to bring about meaningful change to the people who are subjected to it.