Chapter 9. A migrant’s public apology as an instance of internalized racism

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to investigate how racio-national discourse influences the way migrants perceive themselves and frame their trajectories in the host community. Within a CDA framework, we analyze an article written by a young migrant and published in a Greek newspaper of leftwing and antiracist orientation. The article appears to belong to the genre of public apologies, since the author projects migrants as offenders who harmed the victimized majority. We argue that such representation of reality indicates migrants’ internalized racism and simultaneously renders the article an instance of liquid racism, as it is published in a newspaper of antiracist orientation. Through migrants’ reproduction of majority’s racist accusations against them, the hegemony of Greek racio-national discourse is reinforced.