Racialized perceptions

Gabbidon et al (2004) understand that in spite of the moderate gains made to increase the inclusivity of black scholars in relation to criminology and criminal justice, more needs to be done to incorporate perspectives and theoretical ideas that deviate from socalled ‘mainstream criminology’. Fanon (1952: 3) begins to unpack and set a tone for further discussion when he writes:

The significance of Fanon's position is in the envisioning of a critical race criminological imagination that requires a struggle to end any criminological hegemony that desires to subordinate the black voice within the discipline. Zinn (1959) has a word of caution for so-called mainstream criminology's currently monopoly on the discipline and argues that the day-to-day discipline centring on issues of race and racialization should depend on the compliance of a vast number of people. When that compliance is withdrawn, en masse, even force is inadequate to hold back the impulse for justice. Zinn clearly understands that exclusion of a diverse range of criminological theories and perspectives can only lead to division and internal conflict among those who ultimately have one common aim, to ensure the understandings and insights around crime and criminal justice are strong, unified, and robust. Gilroy (1987) argues that ‘race’ must be retained as an analytic category, not because it corresponds to any biological or epistemological absolute, but because it refers investigation to the power that collective identities acquire by means of their roots in tradition.