On reflexive racism: disavowal, deferment and the lacanian subject

The term "reflexivity" continues to maintain an interpretive hegemony in discussions on modernity and the Self. As a form of praxis, applications of reflexivity frequently rely upon an acknowledged awareness of one's self-conscious attitudes, dispositions, behaviors, and motives. This essay takes aim at such contentions, exploring the extent to which examples of racism rely upon a level of reflexivity, best encapsulated in Žižek's "reflexive racism." Specifically, examples of non-racism/anti-racism assert the formal promotion of a monadic subject which is solely adept at "uncovering" and "relinquishing" its racism (disavowal), and depoliticizes racism by relocating and relativizing it to a particular sociohistorical context (deferment). In outlining this response, specific attention is given to Lacan's subject of enunciation and subject of the enunciated to show that it is in the obfuscation of one's "position of enunciation" that examples of reflexive racism reside.