Introduction to the Special Issue: Far from Colorblind. Reflections on Racialization in Contemporary Europe

European history is to a significant extent also a history about racialization and racism. Since the colonizers of past centuries defined boundaries between “civilized” and “savages” by applying value standards in which the notions of race, ethnicity, culture, and religion were interwoven and imposed on human beings perceived as fundamentally different from themselves, racialization became deeply inherent in how (white) Europeans viewed the world, themselves, and others. In this Special Issue, we assume that colonialist racialization constitutes the base of a persistent and often unreflective and indirect racism. Implicit value systems according to which white people are automatically considered as more competent, more desirable, preferable in general terms, and more “European” translate into patterns of everyday racism affecting the self-image and life chances of white and non-white Europeans. In this introductory article, which defines the conceptual framework for the special issue, we contest the idea of a “post-racial” condition and discuss the consequences of ethno-racial differentiation and stigmatization for racialized groups such as Black Europeans, European Roma, and non-white migrants in general. Finally, we argue for the need to further problematize and critically examine whiteness.