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Accepted Article
2 DR. RAHUL SAMBARAJU (Orcid ID : 0000-0003-4936-8079)
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5 Article type : Research Article
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8 Corresponding author mail id: leo.sambaraju@gmail.com

9 ‘We are the victims of racism’: Victim categories in negotiating claims about racism against
10 Black-Africans in India
11
12 Abstract:
13 How is racism negotiated by those who are otherwise victims of racism? Social
14 psychologists show the relevance of categorization in negotiating racism. In the present
15 paper I focus on a setting where the majority group itself can be considered a target of
16 racism: racism against Black-Africans in India. I examine how victim categorization of the
17 majority group is developed and used through a membership categorization analysis of
18 broadcast media news debates. Analysis shows that first, victim categories complicated
19 the use of racial prejudice as an explanation for the attacks. Second, victim
20 categorizations were developed in relation to social groups that were removed from the
21 present setting. These allowed for accomplishing specific actions: denials and rejections
22 of racism, moral concerns in racism, and acceptance of Black-Africans’ claims about
23 racism. Together, the findings show that racism can be negotiated in terms additional to
24 racial/ethnic group membership: as victims or perpetrators of racism.
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26 Keywords:
27 Racism; race categories; India; membership categorization analysis, Africans; victim categories;
28 victimhood.
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This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been
through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to
differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi:
10.1002/EJSP.2751
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
1
Accepted Article Intro
2 Recent events in the United States of America, and elsewhere have shown the persistence of
3 racism in violent forms (AlJazeera, 2020). Social scientists, including social psychologists, have
4 offered significant insights into how racial formations and actions between White and Black
5 peoples are realized (Bonilla Silva, 2017; Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000; Salter & Adams, 2013).
6 Related but distinct issues of racial formations and actions across and in between non-White
7 groups have been relatively underexamined. In an increasingly diverse World, these latter forms
8 of interaction are prominent and, problematically, can lead to similar forms of violence. In the
9 present paper, I focus on anti-Black racism in India (Adegoke, 2017).
10 In much of social psychology, issues of race and racism have rarely been examined in
11 settings where non-White groups are implicated as perpetrators. This omission is important on
12 three fronts. First, the minimal examination of such contexts relates to concerns over psychology
13 being developed as a WEIRD discipline (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010), that is, a discipline
14 concerned with people and behaviours in Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and
15 Democratic, or largely White-majority, settings to the effect of excluding people in other settings.
16 Second, much research in social psychology focuses on the role of racial/ethnic group
17 membership and intergroup relations in examining racism. In settings where non-White groups
18 are implicated as perpetrators of racism, alternative forms of group membership and identities
19 are likely to be relevant. While being ‘White’ might allow for a ready understanding of being in
20 the majority group or in a position to oppress others, membership in other racial categories (non-
21 White) might complicate claims of being oppressors. We know little about how those in
22 marginalized communities who themselves face/d racism manage issues with racism (cf. Salter &
23 Adams, 2017). Third, in these settings a ready possibility is for them to claim victimhood. This
24 means that alongside considering themselves as racial/ethnic group members, they might also
25 treat themselves as victims. Recent research shows that claiming victimhood has several
26 important consequences for our identities, group memberships, and intergroup relations, in
27 ways to effect practical outcomes (Volhardt, 2020). In the present paper, I examine the relevance
28 of categorizing individuals as victims (and perpetrators) in negotiating racism, in the specific case
29 where Black-Africans were subject to racism in India.

1
Accepted Article Social psychological research is concerned with examining how racism arises from
2 individuals’ understandings of their own and others’ group membership. Researchers focus on
3 various ways in which individuals’ membership and identification with social or other groups is
4 central to the realization of, and challenging, racism. Social psychologists broadly take two
5 approaches to these processes: realist or social constructionist. The former treats groups as ‘real’
6 entities that exist outside of individual practices and includes quantitative research from social
7 cognition and much of social identity and intergroup relations frameworks. The latter treats
8 individuals’ practices as constitutive of and constructing groups and consequent intergroup
9 relations. Research here takes exclusively qualitative approaches from a social constructionist,
10 discourse analytic, and ethnomethodological approaches. While I take the latter approach, I will
11 briefly discuss some key findings from the former approach to identify certain key themes and
12 concepts that inform the framing of this paper.
13 Intergroup relations, collective victimhood, and racism
14 An initial point of note is that much research on prejudice, and racism as a prototypical exemplar
15 of prejudice (other than sexism, homophobia, and so on), engages with Allport’s (1954/58) work
16 The Nature of Prejudice. The central idea proposed here was that prejudice arose in irrational
17 categorization, overgeneralization, and ingroup bias (Durrheim, 2014). Alongside an emphasis on
18 cognitive processes of categorization – treating an individual as part of a group of individuals
19 with problematic features – Allport stressed the importance of attitudes towards the ‘other’
20 group (Durrheim, 2014). On these social cognition approaches, processes of social categorization
21 allow individuals to distinguish ‘us’ from ‘them’ (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Prejudice is understood
22 as an orientation or disposition towards groups or individuals because of their membership in
23 those ‘other’ or outgroups (Brown, 2010). Specifically, the orientation takes the form of ingroup
24 favouritism and dislike towards those in the outgroup (Molina, Tropp, & Goode, 2016). Racism is
25 then understood as a set of problematic dispositions and/or actions across individuals who
26 readily claim membership in distinct groups.
27 Social psychologists have explored possibilities where group boundaries and membership,
28 and consequently intergroup relations can be reframed to develop common identities. This
29 model called Common Ingroup Identity Model (Gaertner, Dovidio, Anastasio, Bachman, & Rust,

1 1993), argues for a reduction in prejudice when in and out group members develop a common
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2 broader identity. Researchers identify re-framing categorization processes to minimize
3 differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Miller, 2002) and using this categorization in a positive and
4 multicultural way (Park & Judd, 2005; Verkuyten, 2014), or to develop a meaningful
5 superordinate group identity, such as a national identity (Reynolds, 2016). However there are
6 several concerns with these, for instance, in developing a clear notion of what is to count as a
7 ‘common identity’ (see: Dovidio, Gaertner, Ufkes, Saguy, & Pearson, 2016), which can then work
8 to suppress claims and concerns of those who are routinely oppressed (Greenaway, Quinn, &
9 Louis, 2011; Twali, Hameiri, Vollhardt, & Nadler, 2020). Efforts at minimizing problems of
10 intergroup relations then have to consider the status of the groups involved. For instance,
11 members of different groups avow differing levels of support to common group identities and
12 ideologies (Gutierrez & Unzueta, 2010; Rattan & Ambady, 2013).
13 Membership in different groups has implications for engagement with racism (cf. Hacker,
14 1992). Named as the Marley hypothesis, the argument is that the extent and acceptance of
15 racism varies in respect of whether the individuals are White or Black, as relevant in the United
16 States (Bonam, Das, Coleman, & Slater, 2019; Nelson, Adams, & Salter, 2013). Researchers here
17 argue that knowledge of history and ongoing events are key reasons for the differences in
18 perceptions of racism in the United States (Bonam et al, 2019). Other research similarly shows
19 that minorities are more ‘vigilant’ and more likely to attribute actions and outcomes to racism
20 (Kaiser & Major, 2006; Sommers & Norton, 2006). In parallel, minority group members are
21 reluctant to report personal instances of discrimination (Essed, 1991; Kaiser & Major, 2006).
22 Being a potential target of racism then is consequential for how individuals orient to and tailor
23 their actions.
24 Social psychologists are increasingly engaging with the outcomes of identifying as a target
25 of systemic or structured violence, that is, claiming victimhood (Noor, Vollhardt, Mari, & Nadler,
26 2017; Vollhardt, 2020). Victimhood refers to ‘the subjective experience and construal of’
27 (Vollhardt, 2020: 5) violence against a group. The emphasis on the subjective aspects of
28 victimization points to the various possibilities for making sense of and constructing being victims
29 and consequently effecting various forms of intergroup relations.

1
Accepted Article Recent research shows that ‘competitive victimhood’ is routinely made use of in
2 suppressing the voices of those already marginalized and furthering their exclusion (Noor,
3 Shnabel, Halabi, & Nadler, 2012). For instance, researchers show how majority/White group
4 members, make claims about their victimization in presenting themselves as targets of
5 discrimination or ‘reverse-racism’ (Johnson & Goodman, 2013; Nelson, Hynes, Sharpe, Paradies,
6 & Dunn, 2018; Sharples & Blair, 2020). Perez & Salter (2020) argue that claims of victimhood can
7 be denied for groups that are routine targets of racism. They identify psychological processes
8 that deny victimhood for Black Americans and problematically continue their oppression than
9 developing common identification in ways to participate in collective action to challenge
10 prejudice and discrimination. It is then the case that self-categorization as victims can serve to
11 further oppressive distance with the target group and continue discriminatory practices. McNeill,
12 Pehrson, and Stevenson (2017) show that specific forms of victimhood can be flexibly developed
13 and used for rhetorical ends, indicating that victimhood is as much a discursive claim that is
14 constructed and developed as a possible readily ascribable feature of a group.
15 Much research has however considered instances where the dominant group is rarely
16 oppressed by other groups or the society more broadly. What of instances where the dominant
17 group is itself subject to oppression by other groups or historically? Groups here can be flexibly
18 treated as victims alongside each other or compete about their victimhood, which will likely have
19 differing consequences for possibilities for racism (Meer, 2018; Miles & Brown, 2003). Alongside
20 a flexibility in claiming various forms of victimhood (cf. McNeill et al, 2017), participants will be
21 able to negotiate their and others’ categorization both as racial/ethnic group members and
22 victims. To enable such examination, I use a specialist form of discourse analytic approaches
23 namely, membership categorization analysis.
24 Membership categorization analysis, race categories and racism
25 Membership categorization analysis offers unique technical and methodological tools to examine
26 the contextually relevant development and use of categories (Housley & Fitzgerald, 2015; Sacks,
27 1995).
28 Harvey Sacks’ (1995) work, among other things, was centrally concerned with showing
29 that person (and other) categories are developed and used by participants in ways that both are

1 ‘sense-making’ and allow for the accomplishment of social action. For Sacks, categories are
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2 repositories of common-sense knowledge, which mobilize culture in their use in interactions
3 (Hester & Eglin, 1997). Categories are ‘inference-rich’, in making available a range of inferences
4 on actions, rights, and entitlements about a person so categorized even if this were not true of
5 that person. These arguments offer two points of note: one, categories preserve their function of
6 explaining actions despite contrary evidence on occasions (Schegloff, 2007), and two, categories
7 and their use are social activities (Housley & Fitzgerald, 2015).
8 Sacks also described several features of category use. First, membership categories are
9 collected and procedurally applied from membership categorisation devices (Sacks, 1995: p.
10 246). For instance, ‘race’ and ‘sex’ are devices that collect categories of ‘White’, ‘Black’, and
11 ‘Hispanic’, and, ‘male’ and ‘female’ respectively. However, some categories such as ‘baby’ can be
12 ambiguous since these can belong to more than one device: ‘family’ or ‘stage-of-life’. Second,
13 Sacks then offers certain rules of category application that allow for disambiguating category use.
14 One relevant rule of application is the consistency rule, which states that when a category from a
15 membership category device is used then other categories in use can also be heard as coming
16 from the same device. For Sacks, the use of categories from specific devices gives category-
17 bound inferences and entitlements in ways that serve as participants’ explanations for ongoing
18 activities (Housley & Fitzgerald, 2015).
19 This approach offers distinct advantages to other qualitative and the more traditional
20 quantitative approaches and paradigms, such as those mentioned above, in examining race
21 categories and racism.
22 First, as an ethnomethodological approach (Garfinkel, 1969; for differences in
23 ethnomethodological and critical approaches to race and racism, see: Whitehead, 2017)
24 membership categorization analysts refrain from adopting any single definition or view of racism.
25 Rather, the aim is to identify and examine the various ways in which race categories and racism
26 (or racial prejudice) are constructed by participants and the consequences of doing so. This aligns
27 with other discursive research, which shows that what counts as racism is variously constructed
28 by individuals (on various occasions) and by social psychologists (Figgou & Condor, 2006). In
29 distinction to approaches that would identify specific versions of race categories and racism (cf.
30 Reddy & Gleibs, 2019), discursive approaches prioritize what is being accomplished in using these

1 versions – legitimizing discrimination (Augoustinos & Every, 2007; Robles, 2015) or suppressing
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2 and denying prejudice (Condor, Figgou, Abell, Gibson, & Stevenson, 2006; Shrikant, 2018).
3 Second, membership categorization analysts emphasize the in situ development and use
4 of membership categories in the production of social phenomena, including racism (Condor,
5 1988; Durrheim, Mtose, & Brown, 2011; Whitehead, 2009). Categories such as ‘White’, ‘Black’,
6 and so on are central to the production of racism between and across these categories. This is in
7 contrast to approaches that treat categories and categorization as cognitive processes (Dovidio,
8 2001). Wilkinson (2013) identifies specific self-categorization practices that produce racial
9 categories, like ‘White European’, as stable descriptors and social groups. Whitehead and Lerner
10 (2009) show that categories such as ‘White’, which are routinely invisible, accomplish notable
11 social action when they ‘surface’ in interactions. Membership categorization analysts then
12 examine how race (or other) categories are constructed and used in interaction (Edwards, 1995;
13 Sacks, 1995).
14 Third, membership categorization analytic approaches allow for identifying common-
15 sense understandings of race relations and the relevance of membership in racial/ethnic groups.
16 Whitehead (2009) shows that our uses of race categories attend to the prevalent ‘racial common
17 sense’ where specific race categories can make relevant issues of racial prejudice. Categorizing
18 others in racial categories implicates speakers’ own racial category membership through the
19 mobilization of the commonly available knowledge about racial groups. Race categories, and
20 their use then underpin the production and management of racism as a social action (Whitehead,
21 2009). For instance, Stokoe and Edwards (2007) show that the use of racial category
22 memberships is central to the production and management of complaints about racism.
23 Complainers and recipients of complaints treat the categorization of the actors as central to
24 negotiating racism. Sambaraju and Minescu (2018) show that participants treat knowledge about
25 racism in the context of immigration as tied to their own categorization as migrants or citizens.
26 Relatedly, in social psychology, Durrheim et al (2015) make a foundational argument:
27 following Condor (1988), they argue that race and racism are co-constitutive. For instance, they
28 show that the possibility that the target of an unpleasant action is a member of a minority group
29 that is historically a target of racial oppression (Black), makes relevant racism. Durrheim et al
30 (2011) note that a core concern about the use of race categories in interaction is around

1 inferences of racism. Citing Billig (1988), and, Goodman and Burke (2010), the authors note that
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2 in a range (but not all) of settings explicit mentions of racism is taboo. Billig (1988) discusses the
3 operation of a ‘norm-against prejudice’, by which he refers to a routine orientation of individuals
4 that they better not come across as prejudiced. Consequently, individuals when offering
5 problematic descriptions of others manage implications that such descriptions arise from
6 prejudice through disclaimers (van Dijk, 1992) or ‘discoursive deracialization’ (Reeves, 1983), and
7 several other discursive practices (Augoustinos & Every, 2007). For Durrheim et al (2015) talk
8 that involves matters of race and racism, takes place in respect of the above constraints.
9 Participants themselves treat talk involving race categories and racism as troublesome, a notion
10 the authors call ‘race trouble’. Categories and practices of categorization will then attend to
11 negotiating such race trouble.
12 The above findings and arguments then offer the view that racism is produced and
13 consequently negotiated in close recognition of ‘which type’ of individuals is involved in an event
14 or situation. In talk about potentially race-related matters, participants draw upon shared
15 resources not only about race and racism, but also about the relations between these (Durrheim
16 et al., 2015; Whitehead, 2009). Examination of when and how individuals are categorized in
17 racial/ethnic categories then show how racism and race-relations are understood and negotiated
18 by participants in their own terms.
19 In the present paper, I ask how racism is made sense of and negotiated when such racial
20 categorization is treated as an inadequate explanation for problematic actions against members
21 of another racial group. I examine how categorizing individuals as victims allows for (or not)
22 engaging with and making sense of racism. To do so, I focus on a specific context where those
23 accused of racism can be categorized as victims: anti-Black racism in India.
24 The present study
25 Previous research in somewhat similar settings in Latin America shows that participants attended
26 to similar concerns: those who are targets themselves could be implicated in oppressing others
27 (van Dijk, 2005). The present setting however is distinct to those in Latin America, and Europe,
28 since it is not a settler-colonial society. While various parts of Africa and the Indian subcontinent
29 have had a long and complex history, it did not involve the racial oppression of Indians or

1 Africans by each other in the same way that European colonialism had for Latin America, Africa,
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2 or the Indian subcontinent (Obeng, 2008). As a consequence, a straightforward oppressor-
3 oppressed relation is less likely to be part of readily deployable common-sense cultural
4 knowledge.
5 In recent times, India and its universities are notable destinations for people from several
6 African nations (Obeng, 2008). While statistics are hard to find, some reports suggest that around
7 50,000 persons from various countries in Africa live in India in 2015 (Sikdar, 2016). Contemporary
8 events suggest severe problems: several Black-Africans report discrimination either verbally and
9 physically, or societally in the form of limited access to housing and employment (Mohapatra,
10 2019; Rathi, 2017). Since 2012 however, increasing numbers of violent physical attacks have
11 been recorded. Violent attacks have led to the deaths of a Congolese person in New Delhi in
12 2016, a Nigerian national in Goa in 2013, and the death of a Burundi national in Chandigarh in
13 2014 after an attack in 2012 (Venkatraman, 2016). Accounts of African nationals treat it as
14 problematic that racism and discrimination are not taken-up by concerned authorities: African
15 Students Union claims that acts of discrimination are not treated as racism (Rathi, 2017). Wider
16 public discussion in media debates, for instance, involved considering anti-Black racism in India.
17 Studies of contemporary Indian broadcast news media programs argue that these
18 programs aim to explicate a topical issue from various viewpoints (Chaudhuri, 2010). Kumar
19 (2010) shows that panellists in news debates are routinely made to offer viewpoints that invite
20 challenges from other panellists or the host, and thus make for interesting viewing. In these
21 interactions it is expected that speakers will use race categories, ascribe specific activities as
22 bounded to, predicated upon, or tied to these categories (Fitzgerald & Housley, 2015), or make
23 relevant and use alternative categorizations, and attend to the prevalent racial common-sense
24 (Whitehead, 2012). As part of their ‘shared resources’ (Durrheim et al, 2015) or ‘common-sense
25 knowledge’ (Sacks, 1995; Schegloff, 2007) it is more readily available that Indians (and Black-
26 Africans) are victims of racism: peoples in various parts of Africa and in the Indian sub-continent
27 were subject to colonial racism and are targets of racism in other parts of the World (Obeng,
28 2008). Their membership in race categories then goes together with their victim status (Meer,
29 2018). In the present study, I specifically ask: How are race categories used in conjunction with
30 victim categories in negotiating racism?

1
Accepted Article Method
2 Data
3 Data collection
4 The data for this study are transcripts of debates on news media on attacks against Black-
5 Africans in India. Since these news programmes were produced in response to specific incidents,
6 which themselves were increasingly brought to attention from 2012 onwards, for this study the
7 period between years 2012 to 2017 (inclusive) was chosen. On Google’s Advanced Video Search
8 Engine, the search string ‘Africans + Attacks + India + debate or discussion’ was entered for the
9 dates ‘01/01/2012-01/01/2018’, without specifying language restrictions. From the hits I selected
10 for non-repetitive debates that were broadcast for a national or international, rather than a
11 regional, audience, videos that included both contributions of the host and panellists, and, those
12 that were topically relevant, to result in 16 videos that formed the corpus, reflecting the episodic
13 coverage of racism against Black-Africans in India. The videos each lasted more than 40 minutes,
14 two of these were conducted in Hindi-Urdu whereas the others were in English.
15 The videos were repeatedly watched to gain an intimate familiarity with the topics and
16 issues being discussed. The programs start with an initial ‘slot’ where specific news-items are
17 shown and then after the introduction of various panellists (Clayman & Heritage, 2002), the
18 host(s) invites each panellist for their views. The host(s) sought explanations for the events either
19 in generic terms or index racial prejudice. From this initial set, specific parts were selected for
20 further examination.
21 Coding
22 The selection of relevant extracts was motivated. Initial reading of the dataset focused on the
23 use of race categories. Since the explicit focus here was to examine instances where race
24 categories were used in relation or juxtaposition to victim categories, I took up a more focused
25 search for instances where Indians were categorized as victims or targets of racism. These were
26 offered or expectedly set-up at the beginning portions of the programs or in obtaining ‘first-
27 views’ from panellists in the course of giving explanations for attacks on Black-Africans. These
28 instances and their subsequent turns were selected for detailed transcription using the modified
29 Jeffersonian system (2004). From these, a representative sample of extracts is analysed here.

1 Analytic procedure
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2 The data were analysed using membership categorization analysis (Fitzgerald & Housley, 2015;
3 Sacks, 1995; Stokoe, 2012). The focus was on examining how race categories were used to treat
4 racial prejudice as a relevant explanation and how this was then attended to by the speakers
5 themselves or others in the subsequent turns. I particularly examined the collection of categories
6 used and the membership categorization devices, ‘race’ or ‘racism’ (Stokoe, 2010). The analysis
7 focused on the sequential location and import of category use (Stokoe, 2010; 2012). That specific
8 category use allowed for nominating racial prejudice as an explanation sets-up an
9 acceptance/admission, rejection, or reworking of the categories and the explanation in the next
10 turn.
11 The analysis focused on the use of relevant categorization devices and their outcomes for
12 specifying and re-specifying relations between Indians and Black-Africans. Sacks (1995) argued
13 that at any given instance a person can be categorized in any one of categories from any device
14 (also see: Schegloff (2007)). The various categories from relevant devices sort the population in
15 specific ways: the device ‘sex’, partitions the population into ‘male’ and ‘female’ (or others)
16 (Sacks, 1995: 589-600). The use of categories from another device can subsequently result in a
17 similar partitioning or not. The former is referred to as partitioning constancy and the latter is
18 inconstancy. Using the device ‘marriage’ in interactions where ‘sex’ is relevant preserves
19 constancy in heterosexual settings, since those who are ‘husbands’ will be male. This however
20 will not be the case when the device ‘hospital staff’ is in operation, yielding categories ‘doctor’
21 and ‘nurse’. Those who were jointly members in the category ‘female’ need not remain so in the
22 category ‘nurse’.
23 Preserving the partition allows for legitimating certain activities in the cover of other
24 categories whereas an inconstancy can limit such outcomes. Activities that are legitimately done
25 between members in the same or alternative categories, that is co or cross members, may not
26 hold for each other (Sacks, 1995). This of course is a participants’ concern where participants
27 themselves orient to and make relevant specific devices to yield appropriate co and cross
28 memberships to confer (il)legitimacy of actions. Schegloff (2007) further notes that making
29 relevant such alternatives provides for ‘a possible alternative set of relevancies for conduct, for
30 interpretation, for participation, etc.’ (p. 469). The use of cover categories can then offer and

1 treat another interpretation of the situation as relevant and offer alternative possibilities for
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2 category-bound activities, predicates, and entitlements alongside relations between the
3 categories.
4 I examined how participants reworked the relevant concerns here from that about racial
5 group membership, which treats individuals in racial/ethnic terms, into alternative concerns,
6 such as that whether individuals are members in victim or perpetrator groups. I identified the
7 categorization practices involved, the categories and devices used, the normative inferences and
8 entitlements that were made relevant and used, and the outcomes of these for negotiating
9 racism. In line with the notion of ‘race trouble’ (Durrheim et al, 2015) a focus on the use of
10 categories allowed for examining the shared resources that participants could mobilize while
11 attending to relevant concerns in talk about racism.
12 Results
13 In the extracts below, the analysis shows the development and use of categorizations of Indians
14 and Africans as victims. Participants used ‘racism’ as a membership categorization device to
15 collect social groups ‘Indians’, ‘Africans’, ‘White people’, or ‘British’ in ‘perpetrator’ or ‘victim’
16 categories and use these in negotiating issues around anti-Black racism in India. Of concern for
17 participants here was about whether the individuals involved were acting as members in victim
18 or perpetrator categories. In the present data, these were implicated in the following issues:
19 denying racism, moral culpability for racism, and, accepting and asserting racism. These are
20 examined below.
21 Denials and rejections
22 In the two extracts below, victim categorization of Indians is developed and used to deny and
23 reject racism (cf. Augoustinos & Every, 2007; Goodman, 2015). In Extract 1, victimhood is
24 explicitly used to reject racism as an attribute of Indians. Prior to doing this however, the
25 interviewee develops a commonality between Africans and Indians in ways to minimize possible
26 problematic intergroup relations and the relevance of racism. Extract 1 comes from talk on a
27 news programme series by Al-Jazeera namely ‘The Stream’. The current talk comes from an
28 episode titled ‘Racism against Africans in India’, which was uploaded on YouTube on April 6,

1 2017. Femi Oke, who is Black-British, is the host had invited Tarun Vijay, a spokesperson for the
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2 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was and continues to be in governance, for comment.
3 Extract 1
4
5 [Insert table 1 here]
6
7 Oke invites Vijay to respond to claims about racism in India made by a potential target of racism.
8 Vijay orients to the question as implying that Indians are racist. His account rejects racism as a
9 relevant explanation for the attacks through rejecting that racism is ascribable to Indians or a
10 possible set of intergroup relations between Africans and Indians..
11 Vijay’s descriptions undermine possible treatment of Indians as perpetrators or those
12 who might be in a position to oppress Africans. While, towards the end of his account, Vijay
13 explicitly categorizes Indians as victims and consequently as not racist, initially he develops a
14 favourable characterization of relations between Indians and Africans through a three-part listing
15 (Jefferson, 1990). The first item involves a further three-part listing of relationship descriptors:
16 ‘supporting loving living’ (lines 1-2). Second, he describes Indians as committed to supporting
17 Africans in fighting racial oppression: ‘first to support the black rights’ (lines 3-4). Third, he
18 references support from Africa in India’s struggles against oppression: ‘we gave Gandhi eh to
19 Africa and Africans turned him into Mahatma’ (line 19). He treats (‘so’ (line 6)) these three forms
20 of relations as allowing for claims about ‘great affinity and respect for each other’ (lines 6-7). In
21 doing this, Vijay ascribes specific experiences and actions to Indians and Africans in ways to
22 categorize them as jointly taking-up actions against racism. It then removes possible inferences
23 about possible hierarchical or oppressive relations between these groups, which explanations
24 would readily account for racial discrimination (Dovidio et al). Instead, he develops the view that
25 Indians and Africans share victimhood of colonial and racial oppression.
26 The above allow Vijay to attribute the attacks to transient non-prejudicial mental states
27 (cf. Edwards, 2003) of the attackers than features routinely associated with racism: ‘in a moment
28 of anger (.) shock uh people are reacting’ (line 23). Instead, he rejects the possibility that racism
29 could be ascribed to Indians: ‘Indians can be anything but (.) racist’ (lines 7-8). Vijay then ascribes
30 a specific attribute to Indians, and himself among them, such as that of having ‘fought against

1 racism’ (line 12) in the ‘British’ (line 29) colonial context. This activity mitigates the opposite
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2 claims that Indians are racist. Notably, Oke at line 13, treats Vijay’s claims as categorial – ‘Indians
3 aren’t racist’. Vijay then supplies the explicit category ‘victims of racism’ to explain why racism
4 cannot be ascribed to Indians and consequently why these attacks are not racist. Vijay then
5 treats membership in the category ‘victims of racism’ as setting-up the normative expectation
6 that Indians cannot be perpetrators of racism (cf. Stokoe, 2010). Oke at line 15, treats Vijay’s
7 category formulation as supplying such an explanation. This however is developed in the
8 sequential context where possibilities for claiming pre-existing or anticipated problematic
9 intergroup relations are rejected.
10 In Extract 2, another normative inference bound to the category ‘victims’ is used to reject
11 the claim that Indians are racist. Here, participants make relevant and address a concern that as
12 victims, Indians are particularly aware of racism. Extract 2 comes from the video titled ‘Do
13 Indians Have A 'Racist' Mindset? The Last Word’ published by Mirror Now on 16 March 2018.
14 Here the host Tanvi Shukla is facilitating discussions between Bosco Kaweesi, an activist for the
15 rights of African peoples in India and Rakesh Sinha who is a spokesperson for the Rashtriya
16 Swayamsewak Sangh1.
17 Extract 2
18
19 [Insert Table 2 here]
20
21 Shukla’s categorization of Indians as victims of racism is offered in ways to counter Kaweesi’s
22 account that treats Indians as uninformed: ‘have to be educated’ (line 1) (cf. Figgou & Condor,
23 2006). She then treats ‘racism’ as the relevant device, with its attendant categories of victims and
24 perpetrators. Applying the consistency rule (Sacks, 1995), the subsequent categories used and
25 associated inferences can be heard as being derived from this device.
26 Shukla’s use of ‘victim’ category complicates claims about Indians being unaware about
27 racism. She treats Indians as expectedly aware of issues of racism and discrimination because of
28 their own status as victims: ‘Indians themselves mister Kaweesi often complain of being victims
1 Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh is a right-wing Hindu nationalist organization.

1 of racism’ (lines 2-3). Shukla indexes the use of victims as an act of complaining, to treat Indians
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2 as aware of what it means to be targeted and consequently that their own acts of possible
3 discrimination against Black-Africans are severely problematic: ‘so for us to ta then turn around
4 and be oblivious to what's happening in our OWN (.) country ah is completely unacceptable’
5 (lines 5-7). Notably her evaluation is built from identifying an issue with Indians’ acts of possible
6 discrimination as victims. For Shukla this sets-up an explanation, which is offered in terms that
7 distinct to those routinely offered in social psychology (Figgou & Condor, 2006). Her explanation
8 treats Indian racism as arising not from ignorance, but from ‘White skin obsession’ (line 9) on the
9 one hand, and ‘a bias that maybe towards others’ (line 10) on the other. For Shukla Indians’
10 racism is explainable as arising from affiliation or identification with ‘White people’.
11 For Sinha however accepting this explanation amounts to endorsing the unique concern
12 that Indians wish to affiliate with ‘White people’, who are hearable as perpetrators of racism
13 given the categorization device in operation. He rejects such claims and inferences, explicitly
14 attributed to Kaweesi, at line 19: ‘no mister Indians identify themselves as bl Whites’ (line 19).
15 And, he offers an alternative: ‘they identify as Black’ (lines 19-20). These claims are not merely
16 affiliative or kinship categorizations claiming friendship or brotherhood (as he offers later) (cf.
17 Whitehead, 2012). Sinha does not claim an identification with African or Black-African. Rather his
18 claim is directed at Shukla’s explanation that Indians might affiliate with ‘White people’, which
19 might be a reason for prejudice against those who are Black. In doing this, Sinha treats Indians as
20 victims than perpetrators of racism.
21 Sinha offers descriptions that treat Indians and Africans as commonly sharing experiences
22 of victimhood. More relevantly, these descriptions treat Indians as actively challenging racial
23 oppression faced by themselves and Black-Africans. This includes details about historical events
24 and incidents, such as those of struggles ‘during the colonial period’ (line 21), ‘anti-apartheid
25 conference in Brussels’ (lines 21-22), and events involving ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ (line 25). Sinha
26 develops a commonality between Africans and Indians that treats them as sharing similar
27 concerns over racism and a ‘common objective’: ‘our struggle was not only against colonialism
28 our struggle was also against apartheid’ (lines 22-24). The pronoun ‘our’ works to develop a
29 commonality of experiences bound-up with being Indian or Black-African. What this achieves is
30 to treat Indians and Africans as sharing membership in the category of those facing concerns and

1 issues related to racial oppression, and consequently that for the present issues differences
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2 related to skin-colour or ethnicity are less relevant: ‘coincidentally he is Black’ (lines 28-29). It is
3 this that allows him to reject the explanation that Indians have an affiliation with Whiteness and
4 consequently that these attacks are racist.
5 In distinction to Vijay in Extract 1 however, Sinha concedes (Wetherell & Antaki, 1999) the
6 possibility that specific individuals might be prejudiced – ‘have a racial feeling’ (line 30). This
7 concession preserves the possibility of individual prejudice, while rejecting any problematic
8 disposition of Indians towards Africans because of their racial group membership. For Sinha
9 Indians’ categorization as victims rejects racism as an attribute.
10 These rejections are then distinct from other denials of racism, such as in contexts of
11 migration (Goodman, 2010; van Dijk 1992) or race relations in the United States (Bonilla-Silva,
12 2017) and Australia (Augoustinos & Every, 2007). Augoustinos & Every (2007) and Goodman
13 (2015) identify several discursive practices where majority group members deny racism (also see
14 van Dijk, 1992). Here, participants deny racism through categorizing Indians as victims of racism
15 from other social groups.
16
17 Morality
18 Claiming victimhood alongside Black-Africans raises an interesting complication that was briefly
19 seen in Extract 2: it is particularly troublesome that as victims Indians are now engaging in
20 similarly problematic acts towards fellow victims. Sacks (1989) notes that troublesome treatment
21 of members in the same category can lead to notably problematic evaluations, such as when a
22 Jewish person might mistreat a fellow Jewish person. For Sacks, this is because it sets-up
23 problems with explaining those actions, which explanations might be available in case of cross-
24 member activities (such as racism). In Extract 3, speakers treat such concerns as implicating
25 unique forms of moral culpability for racism by Indians against Black-Africans since both groups
26 can be similarly categorized ‘victims of racism’. Extract 3 comes from the video of a news
27 programme titled ‘African reaction on attack on their citizens: how should India react?’,
28 published on April 4, 2017 on YouTube, from the series ‘Desh Deshantar’ run by Rajya Sabha
29 Television. Here Jitendra Kumar Tripathi, introduced as a former ambassador, is the panellist and

1 Arfa Khanum Sherwani is the host. Talk here takes-place in Hindi-Urdu as the medium
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2 (Gafaranga, 2000).
3 Extract 3
4
5 [Insert Table 3 here]
6
7 Tripathi explicitly treats racial prejudice as tied to the category ‘Indians’ through describing
8 routine practices of discrimination targeted at persons from ‘North East’, ‘South’, and ‘Africa[n]’,
9 in the form of using racial slurs: ‘chinki’, ‘mallu’, and ‘habshi’ respectively (lines 3-5). He offers
10 visible phenotypical features as marking racism in India: those ‘who are not like us they are
11 inferior to us lesser than us and that is why we treat them like this’ (lines 6-7). He ascribes these
12 to inner mental goings-on (Edwards, 2003) – ‘thought deep inside us’ – hearable as racial
13 prejudice. Tripathi’s account then is a readily acceptable explanation for attacks on Black-Africans
14 in India: ‘there is racist thought’ (line 2) in India.
15 Sherwani however does not accept this explanation: ‘NO especially that’ (line 8). Instead,
16 she offers an alternative that treats categories of victims and perpetrators of racism as more
17 relevant in accounting for the attacks on Black-Africans. Sherwani introduces a victim
18 categorization of Indians as something that Indians complain about: ‘we complain that we were
19 victims of racial discrimination’ (line 9). Sherwani’s account includes explicit skin-colour/racial
20 differences between Indians and others: ‘brown people’, ‘white people’, and ‘who are darker
21 than us’ (line 12). She however treats as important, possibilities of being perpetrators or targets
22 of racism through foregrounding possibilities of actions that normatively take place across
23 categories, such as discrimination (lines 15-16). Her account reorganizes the classifications of
24 people from that based solely on race or skin-colour to that which is about racism categories,
25 victims and perpetrators. Expectations and evaluations made of individuals then follow this latter
26 set of categories. Sherwani sets-up an explanation for mistreating those who are similar to
27 Indians in being victims of racial prejudice: ‘when we come across others who are darker than us
28 we discriminate against them’ (line 16).
29 In his turn, Tripathi abandons the prejudice-based account introduced earlier, in favour of
30 a culturally situated account that aligns with Sherwani’s account in so far as it takes-up and treats

1 as relevant the categories ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’. In doing this, he treats Indians as victims of
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2 racism alongside possibilities of prejudice. Tripathi uses the culturally situated and family-related
3 membership categorization device – ‘in-laws’ – in developing an analogy to explain Indian racism
4 against Black-Africans. The device here includes the categories ‘mother-in-law’ (line 20) and
5 ‘daughter-in-law’ (line 21), where these categories stand in particular relation to each other and
6 set-up normative expectations of activities, inclusive of rights and duties (Sacks, 1995).
7 Tripathi specifically attributes to ‘the mother-in-law’ features of having suffered and
8 wanting to inflict more suffering to ‘the daughter-in-law’. This treats the categories ‘mother-in-
9 law’ and ‘daughter-in-law’ as flexibly positioned: individuals can occupy either categories without
10 changing activities and entitlements bound-up with these categories. For Tripathi, this analogy
11 aligns with the current discussion on how Indians as brown people are victims and perpetrators
12 of racism in relation to other categories. Having made clear the victim status of Indians he goes
13 onto treat current racism against Black-Africans as similar: ‘why do the same to them when we
14 were the victims of that’ (lines 21-23). Notably however, Tripathi develops a flexible positioning
15 of group relations, where group status, as victims or perpetrators, explains discriminatory
16 behaviour.
17 Tripathi treats the victimhood status of Indians and Africans as allowing for claims on
18 alternative actions to discrimination, namely those of solidarity: ‘we should want to that we hug
19 them’. Both Tripathi and Sherwani treat Indian racism as explainable and problematic through
20 the victim categorization of Indians, which they share with Africans rather than as an attribute of
21 the social group ‘Indians’.
22 In Extract 4, similar concerns over Indian victimhood are used to develop two versions of
23 racism: racism is common to all and that as targets Indians ought to act in compassionate ways
24 with other targets. However, these are used in similar ways: to treat current attacks against
25 Black-Africans as particularly problematic. Extract 4 comes from a video published by NDTV on
26 March 29, 2017, titled: ‘India shamed as Nigerians are attacked: Are we racist?’ Here the host
27 Nidhi Razdan invites the BJP spokesperson GVLN Rao for comment on whether these attacks are
28 indicative of racism.
29

1
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2
3 [insert Table 4 here]
4
5 Razdan’s question to Rao sets-up an admission of Indians’ racism: ‘racist nation’ (line 2). This is
6 supported by evidence of attacks against fellow Indians from ‘the NorthEast’ and ‘African
7 students’ (line 7). Razdan develops the claim that perhaps racism is routine for individuals
8 irrespective of their group/category membership: ‘deep rooted racism in all of us’ (lines 8-9).
9 Rao in response accepts the claim and offers a listing of attacks on Africans in various
10 parts of India, at lines 10-17. Rao however introduces the possibilities for Indians themselves as
11 targets of racially motivated attacks in other parts of the World. To this categorization, he
12 ascribes reactions from other Indians in a three-part listing (Jefferson, 1990): ‘whole nation I
13 think rises and whole nation gets really hurt our our uh our own psyche gets hurt’ (lines 20-22).
14 The use of the extreme case formulation (Edwards, 2005; Pomerantz, 1983) treats it as routine
15 that racist attacks prompt such reactions from co-members. This feature allows him the
16 subsequent claim that similar reactions are expected and ‘should’ be offered by Indians when
17 Black-Africans are attacked. Rao’s use of the modal ‘should’ is noteworthy since it turns on the
18 development of similarity with other targets of attacks, irrespective of their social group
19 membership. In doing this, Rao works to minimize the relevance of categorization of individuals
20 as members in national or ethnic categories in favour of categorizing them as jointly victims of
21 racism across settings. This allows him offering ‘compassionate’ as a response from fellow
22 Indians in cases where Africans are targets of discrimination. Using victim categorizations can
23 then allow for unique moral claims in negotiating racism.
24
25 Accepting and asserting racism
26 A routine concern for victims is that their claims are not readily accepted. This is particularly the
27 case for victims of racism (Essed, 1991; Louw-Potgeiter, 1991; Kaiser & Major, 2006) or other
28 forms of discriminatory behaviour (Sambaraju, 2020). In the two extracts below, participants

1 orient to and make relevant that as victims Indians are in a position to accept claims about
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2 racism from Black-Africans who are similarly victims.
3 Extract 5 comes from comes from the video of a news program titled ‘To The Point: Are
4 Indians Racist?’, hosted by Karan Thapar, published on May 30, 2016, by India Today. Here,
5 Thapar asks Amy Kasmin, an American national working as the South Asian corresponded for the
6 Financial Times, whether these attacks were racist.
7
8 Extract 5
9
10 [Insert table 5 here]
11
12 Thapar’s question invites Kazmin to affirm or deny that the attacks in question were racist. Of
13 interest is Kazmin’s response and Thapar’s subsequent uptake of it. Kazmin, in her response,
14 treats Indians and Africans as similarly targets or victims of possibly racially motivated attacks.
15 Subsequent to managing her epistemic rights and access (Sambaraju & Minescu, 2018) in
16 affirming whether these attacks were racist, she uses race categories in describing events in
17 another setting: attacks on Indians in Australia. Her descriptions tie specific activities to the
18 categories ‘Indian’ and ‘Australian’ in ways not to ascribe racism, but to offer inferences about
19 perceptions of members in these categories: Indians felt they were being targeted by Australians.
20 Kazmin describes a ‘series’ of events involving attacks on ‘Indians in Australia’ (lines 4-5).
21 Alongside her description that these were a ‘series’, her reporting of other Indians’ views treats
22 these as patterned: ‘we as a community are being targeted there is a pattern here’ (lines 20-21)
23 and ‘Indians were being singled out and targeted in Australia by Australians’ (line 26). Her
24 description focuses on how these attacks were treated as racist by ‘Indians and in fact India
25 almost as a united whole’ (line 19). She contrasts these with possibilities for other explanations,
26 such as that these were random crimes: ‘dismiss each and every one of the crimes’ (line 9). The
27 extreme case-formulation (Pomerantz, 1984) works to legitimize the possibility that the attacks
28 could be attributed to other reasons such as that of being a ‘robbery’ or a ‘mugging’.
29 In specifying that just as the current attacks are being treated as ‘minor scuffles’ (line 7),
30 so could the attacks on Indians, she points to similarities in both cases, which are that the attacks

1 involved members in different race categories and this alone might be insufficient to treat
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2 attacks as racist. Rather, she offers an alternative, which is that of what was claimed by those
3 targeted: ‘Indians felt’ (line 12). In doing this, she makes relevant the entitlement that Indians
4 claimed as victims/targets of racism: those attacks were racist. This treats victim categorizations
5 as central to identifying racism as relevant in problematic behaviour against a social group.
6 Furthermore, Kazmin indexes entitlements that arise from the victim categorization, which is
7 that their claims about discrimination are to be accepted (Essed, 1991; Kaiser & Major, 2006).
8 Thapar explicitly takes-up the category membership of victims (line 30), in agreement
9 with Kazmin’s account: ‘you’re making a fair point Amy’ (line 19). He treats this category as open
10 to membership by either racial groups while preserving the entitlements associated with each. In
11 the present case, this is taken to imply that claims by victims are to be accepted irrespective of
12 other ways of categorizing them (in terms of race). In this way, Kazmin and Thapar treat issues
13 where Indians are held as perpetrators of racism as relevantly featuring their own status as
14 victims.
15 In Extract 6, similar instances where Indians were targets of racially motivated attacks are
16 used to set-up claims about racism against Black-Africans in India. Extract 6 comes from a video
17 published by NDTV on April 5, 2017, titled: ‘Attacks on Africans Not Racist’: India in Denial?’. This
18 involved the host interviewing several Black-African and Indian persons, many of whom were
19 introduced as students. In the extract below, the host selects and invites one Black-African
20 student for comment.
21
22 Extract 6
23
24 The interviewee describes instances of racism against Indians in the United States of America, in
25 developing the categorization of Indians as victims of racism. He then describes somewhat
26 similar goings-on in India directed at Black-Africans, such as the use of banners which stated,
27 ‘Nigerians free Greater Noida’ (line 8). In doing this, he develops similarities between the
28 experiences of Indians abroad and Black-Africans in India. This sets-up the inference that just as
29 Indians are (can be) victims of racism in other parts of the World, Black-Africans are victims of
30 racism in India. The interviewee uses this similarity to make the claim that the present attacks on

1 Black-Africans can be treated as racism (line 14). Similar to Thapar in Extract 6, the interviewer
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2 accepts this claim.
3 Notably, in both extracts in this section the interviewees are non-Indian persons who
4 make claims that attacks on Africans can be considered as similar to attacks on Indians in other
5 settings. The development of this similarity of being targets/victims of racially motivated attacks,
6 works to further their claims that the nature of current attacks as racial is to be recognized by
7 Indians, since these claims arise from a status of victimhood.
8
9 Discussion
10 This paper was concerned with how groups that are subject to racial oppression and racism
11 themselves manage concerns with being racist. The specific focus was then on the role of victim
12 categories in negotiating racism in a setting where this phenomenon is likely: attacks on Black-
13 Africans in India. The findings show that first, victim/perpetrator categories were a resource that
14 mobilized alternative sets of inferences, which complicated straightforward attributions of
15 actions and outcomes to racism. As cover for racial/ethnic categories, victim categories re-
16 organized relations between groups in question to allow for distinct ways of negotiating racism.
17 Second, in these settings, the majority group constructed their victim status in relation to
18 social groups that were not immediately present. Together the findings show that alongside
19 group status of being minorities, being victims of racism was relevant for how racism is
20 negotiated. Notably, the victim status was derived from relations with groups that are not
21 directly involved in the ongoing setting. Group status and membership are then dynamic
22 elements that embed and develop various practices for negotiating racism.
23 Present findings build on previous research which shows that category membership is key
24 to generating racism as a recognizable phenomenon (Durrheim et al., 2015; Stokoe & Edwards,
25 2007; Whitehead 2009). In that, the issue of ‘which type of person’ is involved is usually resolved
26 through the response that the person is categorizable as a member in a racial/ethnic category to
27 bring up racism as a relevant explanation for problematic actions. Social psychologists argue that
28 processes of categorization that allow for distinguishing a favourable ‘us’ from an unfavourable
29 ‘them’ are central to problematic intergroup relations (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Researchers also

1 show the relevance of group status, in terms of being majority or minority/targets of
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2 discrimination for dealing with racism (Gutierrez & Unzueta, 2010; Rattan & Ambady, 2013).
3 Recently, research has focused on the status and implications of victimhood (Noor et al., 2017;
4 Vollhardt, 2020) for a range of social phenomena, but not racism.
5 In the present case, alongside the use of racial/ethnic categories, participants categorized
6 those involved as victims/perpetrators. This complicated attributing these attacks to racial
7 prejudice (Allport, 1954) or problematic intergroup behaviour (Molina et al., 2016). For
8 participants here, that Indians were categorized as victims of racism meant that racial prejudice
9 was not readily available as an explanation for attacks on Black-Africans. Rather, it complicated
10 the use and relevance of racial prejudice.
11 Indians’ categorization as victims of racism was a resource in developing several
12 normative inferences: Indians cannot be racist (Extract 1 & 2), were aware of racism (Extracts 2 &
13 3), expected not to racially discriminate against others (Extract 3), expected to show solidarity
14 and compassion (Extracts 3 & 4), and accept similar claims of other victims (Extracts 5 & 6).
15 Unsurprisingly, these inferences and normatively expected activities and entitlements are
16 distinct to those that are mobilized when using racial/ethnic categories. Participants engaged
17 with these in accomplishing three types of actions: denying racism (Extract 1 &2), Indian racism
18 as morally problematic (Extracts 3 & 4), accepting and asserting racism (Extracts 5 &6). These
19 actions were accomplished in the context of discussing whether attacks on Black-Africans were
20 racially motivated or racial prejudice was the reason for these attacks.
21 Previous research shows the development and use of victimhood claims in relation to
22 immediately present other groups. For instance, majority group members can and do categorize
23 themselves as victims in the service of making clams about ‘reverse-racism’ (Johnson &
24 Goodman, 2013; Nelson, et al., 2018) or anti-White racism (Sharples & Blair, 2020). Their victim
25 claims are directed at being victims of immigrant or other non-White groups, which are likely to
26 be in the minority. Alternatively, McNeill et al (2017) show the flexible development and
27 construction of victim status in settings of intergroup conflict. Stevenson, Condor, and Abell
28 (2007) similarly argue that statuses of being a majority or minority group in an intergroup conflict
29 setting (Northern Ireland) are challenged and negotiated to achieve specific outcomes. In the
30 present case, doing so allowed for reworking a simplistic majority-minority binary relation

1 between Indians and Africans. Instead of possibilities where relations between Indians and Black-
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2 Africans were similar to two distinct groups engaged in competitive or problematic ‘us’ and
3 ‘them’ relations, the use of victim categories engendered alternative sets of relations.
4 The use of victim categorizations allowed for accomplishing these actions owing to the
5 following features. Victim categories here were in the first instance relational, that is, these were
6 developed in relation to social groups proximal and distant. Second, these categories were
7 produced on specific occasions in interaction (Stokoe, 2012) to attend to and address ongoing
8 concerns that participants faced, such as explaining Indians’ racism, offering an alternative
9 account to racial prejudice, rejecting racism, or asserting racism. Victim categories then were
10 neither stable or nor enduring features of social groups, but were produced in situ (Sacks, 1995).
11 In addition to being rhetorical (McNeill et al., 2017), victim categories and their associated
12 inferences were interactional. Third, the development and use of victim categories instantiates a
13 central principle of ethnomethodological approaches to categories and categorization:
14 categorization is flexible. Alongside research that shows the in situ production and development
15 of racial/ethnic categories (Whitehead & Lerner 2009; Wilkinson, 2013), the present findings
16 show that participants can and do develop alternative means by which racism is negotiated:
17 developing an alternative to majority-minority relations. These features mark the use of
18 victim/perpetrator categories as distinct to ethnic/racial categories.
19 What, if any, is the role of culture for these data and practices? While a case can be made
20 that the phenomena seen here are culturally located in India, the categorizations were
21 developed and used by both Indians and non-Indians. The practices then are perhaps cultural in
22 being part of the common-sense knowledge applicable to social groups that are targets of
23 oppression (cf. Sacks, 1995; Stokoe, 2012). These can be seen as practices involving the Global
24 South or non-WEIRD settings, where racial categories perhaps more readily implicate histories of
25 oppression and marginalization (Bhatia, 2002; Meer, 2018). Future research can examine similar
26 phenomena in other settings.
27 Present findings extend current understandings of race and racism in social psychology
28 first, in showing that, for participants, actors’ status as victims/perpetrators is both meaningful
29 and relevant means of negotiating racism (cf. Rattan & Ambady, 2013). Building on research that
30 treats race and racism as social constructions (Billig, 1998; Bonilla-Silva, 2017; Durrheim et al.,

1 2015; Wetherell, 2012; Wetherell & Potter, 1987; Whitehead, 2012) present findings show that
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2 participants can use victim categories as a resource. Using these in the place of race categories
3 comprise distinct practices of negotiating racism. It allowed participants to develop relations
4 between Indians and Africans as alternative to those entailed merely by a majority-minority
5 dynamic in negotiating racism.
6 Racism was understood as less about inner psychological processes or disposition
7 towards other ethnic/racial groups (Allport 1954) and more as bound-up with ‘which type’ of
8 group members are involved. Concerns were then less around irrationality (Billig 1988; Wetherell
9 2012) and more with morality: Indians were now acting as those who had or continue to
10 victimize Indians. The group’s status as victims or perpetrators then depended on other groups
11 that were not directly implicated in the ongoing social setting.
12 Second then, victim status can be flexibly developed in relation to social groups that are
13 not immediately present in the context. In the present case, and perhaps in other cases too,
14 racism was negotiated as an outcome of and embedded in broader socio-historical relations.
15 However, participants did not treat the relevance of such relations as binding on how race and
16 racism were understood (cf. Meer, 2008). They could flexibly develop victim/perpetrator
17 categories to address and manage concerns at hand.
18 Social psychologists have examined the relevance of socio-historic events for current
19 understandings of racial/ethnic group membership (cf. Reddy et al, 2018). The present findings
20 however show that the possible influence of such events or phenomena can be flexibly
21 constructed to develop specific categorizations of groups involved to address and manage
22 ongoing interactional concerns for participants. In that, social psychologists can usefully go
23 beyond static understandings of features and properties of racial/ethnic categories and examine
24 the relevance of race and racism from the perspectives of participants themselves.
25 The focus on other means of categorizing individuals involved can provide rich and broad
26 understandings of racism. For instance, immigrant groups can similarly make claims to their
27 membership in migrant groups to develop various understandings of race and racism. Focusing
28 on such status of actors can potentially have practical implications for anti-racism. As seen in
29 these data, victim status allowed participants to treat racism by Indians as particularly
30 problematic instead of showing solidarity or compassion (Extracts 2, 3, & 4). Victim categories

1 can also be mobilized to assert and push for acceptance of racism in place of denials or
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2 suppression (Extracts 5 & 6). In several settings, victim status of actors can be foregrounded to
3 build solidarity and empathy among and with those who are routinely oppressed because of their
4 racial/ethnic or other group memberships.
5 Limitations and conclusions

6 The data come from media discussions that were generated for the purposes of discussing anti-
7 Black racism in India as an episodic phenomenon. Issues and concerns discussed here were less
8 around systemic or other features of anti-Black racism. Notably, the present data do not centrally
9 feature voices of Black-Africans themselves and their accounts over racism. However, as seen in
10 Extract 6 (and Kaweisi in Extract 2), their voices are unlikely to be different. Rather their concerns
11 around how to assert racism deserve a more thorough explication and are being developed
12 elsewhere. In times of rising nationalism in India (Chatterji, Hansen, & Jafferlot, 2019),
13 condemning Indians for racism might also lead to punitive actions. However, participants here
14 developed Indians as both victims and perpetrators in ways to both suppress and problematize
15 racism. Further, the data collected for this study come from a period of 5 years from various
16 news agencies and hosts/panellists. This attends to some generality of the phenomenon seen
17 here.
18 To conclude, the present findings show that group membership is dynamic and flexibly
19 developed by individuals. The flexibility allows us to negotiate contexts and concerns that we
20 face, such as that of racism. In negotiating claims about racism, victim status can offer various
21 implications for group membership.
22

1 Statement on conflict of interest: I declare no conflict of interest in any of the stages involved in
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2 the preparation and submission of this manuscript to your journal.
3 Statement on Ethics: The research conducted here received ethical approval from the
4 appropriate department’s Research Ethics Committee.
5 Statement on data archiving and sharing: The data used here are freely available in the public
6 domain and are accessible through using the procedures described in the ‘Method’ section.
7
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14

1
Accepted Article Tables
2 Table 1
1 Vijay .... but Indians have been <supporting loving

2 living> together with African: students African
3 people .h and we were the fi:rst to support the
4 Black rights uh we gave Gandhi eh to Africa and
5 Africans turned him into Mahatma and sent back to
6 us (.) so we have a great affinity and respect for
7 each other
8 Oke sure
9 Vijay perhaps in a moment of anger (.) shock uh people are
10 reacting >I can understand that< but you must
11 understand that Indians can be anything but (.)
12 racist=
13 Oke [Indians aren't racist
14 Vijay =we are the] victims of racism=
15 Oke aa:hh
16 Vijay =of the British people for lo:ng how can we be we
17 have fought against racism
4
5 Extended extract

Accepted Article

Accepted Article
1
2

1 Table 2
Accepted Article
2
3

Accepted Article
22 Sinha was India who sent the delegation during the colonial period anti-
23 apartheid conference in Brussels Jawaharlal Nehru led that co led that led
24 that delegation so our struggle was not only against the colonialism our
25 struggle was also against apartheid .h that is the reason there is a great
26 friendship and understanding between Africa and India .h mahatma
27 Gandhi was in Africa (()) we had the we had the common objective so the
28 incident that has taken place with- an an African and ub coincidentally he
29 is Black that does not mean that ind eh w it is a racism it is a it is a bl it is
30 a law and order issue .h I don't say that every Indian is free from ub uh
31 racial remark uh uh not making a racial remark not not not have racial
32 feeling but majority of the Indians I think uh the point
1
2

1 Table 3
2
Accepted Article1 Tripathi � य� क� दे �खए हमारे यहाँ जैसा के professor साहब ने कहाँ क�
because see in our parts like the Professor said
2 uv- अपूवा�नंद जी ने क� हमारे यहाँ <racist सोच है > (.) हम:
uv- Apoorvan that in our parts <there is racist
thought> we
3 northeast के लोग� को chinki कक� बुला दे ते ह� south वाले
call those from the northeast chinki those from
the south
4 लोग� को हम म�लु कक� बल

ु ा दे ते ह� (.) जो भी African होता
we call them mallu (.) those who are African we
call
5 ह� उनको हम (.) हबशी क� बुला दे ते ह� सात म� जात� ह� तो हम
them habshi and when they are with us so then
6 (.) हम उनको अपने बराबर नह�ं मानते शायद हमारे अंदर कह�ं ये
we (.) do not treat them as equals maybe somehwere
inside us
7 सोच बहुत deep inside है �क जो हमारे जैसा नह�ं वो हमसे
there is a thought deep inside that who are not
like us they are
8 inferior है वो हम से �न�न है (.)और इसी�लए हम इनको ऐसा वो

inferior to us lesser than us (.)and that is why we
treat them
9 करते ह� -
like this-
10 Sherwani >नई और खाँसकर< इसके बावजूद भी: के जो गोरे लोग कहे जाते ह�
No especially that despite that those who are called
white people
11 हम �शखायत करते ह� क� हम ख़द
ु न�ल भेद का �शकार रह� ह�
We complain that we were victims of racial
discrimination
12 Tripathi जी
yea
1
2

13 Sherwani हम � ाउन [अपने को कहते ह� क� हम [� ाउन लोग है और
Accepted Article we call ourselves brown people we are brown people
14 Tripathi जी] जी]
yea yea
15 Sherwani >सफेद लोग जो ह�गोरे लोग जो ह�
and those white people those who are White
16 Tripathi जी
yea
17 Sherwani वो हमारे साथ रं ग बेध कथ�ह� < .h ले�कन जब
discriminate against us based on our colour but now
18 हम� हम से गहरे रं ग का �मल जाता ह� तो उनके साथ हम भेद करते ह�

when we come across others who are darker than us
we discriminate against them
19 Tripathi म�इसको दे �खए �ट�पकल (.) साँस-बहु [syndrome मानता हूँ
I think of this as see typical in-laws’ syndrome
hmihijihi]
20 Sherwani (chuckles)
21 Tripathi के साँस(.) ने अपने ज़माने म� दःु ख सह� ह� torture सहा है >अपनी

where the sadness and torture that the mother-in-
law suffered in her time she
22 साँस से< जो अपनी बहू को उससे भी � यादा दे ना चाहतीं ह� जो जैसा
would the mother-in-law would inflict much more
than that upon her daughter-in-law so how
23 जैसा अं� ीिजय� ने हमारे साथ न�ल बेध �कया वैसा ह� आज इनके साथ
the British racially discriminated against us in
the same way why do the same to them
24 � य� कर�=
why do the same
25 Sherwani hmm
26 Tripathi =जब क� हम उसके �शकार रह� ह� (.) हम� तो और चा�हये क�

when we were the victims of that we should want to
27 हम उनको गले लगाएँ
that we hug them
1

Table 4
Accepted Article
1 Razdan Mr GVL Rao uh you know would would you concede
2 today that uh that we are a racist nation that that
3 you know we've shown that time and again in the way
4 that often we react to our own people the way people
5 from the NorthEast get treated in various parts of
6 the country and now it’s been happening with
7 African students eh you know as well and an that
8 somewhere there is a deep rooted racism that is in
9 all of us
10 Rao no unfortunately I think what you are saying is
11 absolutely right and uh ub I think in every part
12 of country we have seen this these things happen
13 we've had uh Tanzanian girl being attacked and
14 brutally attacked and and even disrobed in
15 Bengaluru in a cosmopolitan city you've seen uh
16 Congolese national being attacked and chased and
17 killed in Delhi so I so I certainly this uh there
18 are no exceptions and every time our own brother
19 brothers and sisters are attacked in any part of
20 the world then whole nation I think rises and whole
21 nation gets really hurt our our uh our own psyche
22 gets hurt so I think we should really we have to
23 be equally compassionate with uh foreign nationals
24 of every part of the globe and uh every one such
25 incident that happened yesterday I think gives us
26 enormous amount of bad publicity

Accepted Article
Table 5
1 Amy an=also because I wasn't sort of personally A:t >any of

2 these incidents< it is hard for me to you know make specific
3 judgements but I would like to remind um people of uh
4 parallel incidents something that I um you know am
5 recalling now um and that is the experience of the attacks
6 on Indians in Australia which there was a series of
7 incidents a few years ago .h and Indians were in- Indians
8 and in fact India almost as a united whole was very quick
9 to rise up and stand up say these are racist attacks we as
10 a community are being targeted there is a pattern here I
11 mean s it would have been easy to dismiss each and every
12 one of the crimes against Indians in Australia >somebody
13 could have equally said< we:ll this is just a crime this
14 is just a robbery this was just a mugging there's crime in
15 our country .hh but <as a whole> Indians felt that there
16 was a pattern to these crimes and that there was a racial
17 pattern to these crimes that Indians were being singled
18 out and targeted in Australia by Australians so I think
19 it’s a useful parallel to keep in mind I mean also
20 I couldn't really
21 comment on those attacks whether they were in fact racially
22 motivated
23 okay]
24 Thapar [or whether they were um >you know< a series of incidents
25 Kasmin but you're making you're making a fair point] Amy you're
26 Thapar making a fair point Amy you’re suggesting that just as the
27 Indian community and the Indian Government was determined
28 to view what happened in Australia as racism we ought to
29 be equally honest when the perpetrators are deemed to be
30 us and the victims our guests the Africans
31

Table 6
Accepted Article
1 IR sir sir the student wants to respond to you yea: what did
2 you wana say
3 IE what I want to say is just uh one ting
4 IR yea
5 IE because u:h from the media: after uh I've seen a story when
6 uh an TWo: Indians were attacked in the United States >but
7 I'm not certain about the time< they were shot by an
8 American SHouting GO back to India (.) go back to your
9 country so clearly when this racial attack happen in Greater
10 Noida (.) same people that attacked us were having banners
11 written Nigerians free Greater Noida so: there's certain
12 similarities between the two
13 IR [that's ((unclear))
14 IE so we can call] we can call it absolutely that is racism
15 bu:t people here don't seems to understand and then declare
16 it [racism
17 IR that's a really] good point

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8 Corresponding author mail id: leo.sambaraju@gmail.com

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13 Intergroup relations, collective victimhood, and racism

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24 Membership categorization analysis, race categories and racism

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24 The present study

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21 Denials and rejections

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1 Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh is a right-wing Hindu nationalist organization.

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25 Accepting and asserting racism

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5 Limitations and conclusions

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1 Vijay .... but Indians have been <supporting loving

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26 friendship and understanding between Africa and India .h mahatma

28 incident that has taken place with- an an African and ub coincidentally he

29 is Black that does not mean that ind eh w it is a racism it is a it is a bl it is

32 feeling but majority of the Indians I think uh the point

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4 लोग� को हम म�लु कक� बल

8 inferior है वो हम से �न�न है (.)और इसी�लए हम इनको ऐसा वो

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18 हम� हम से गहरे रं ग का �मल जाता ह� तो उनके साथ हम भेद करते ह�

21 Tripathi के साँस(.) ने अपने ज़माने म� दःु ख सह� ह� torture सहा है >अपनी

26 Tripathi =जब क� हम उसके �शकार रह� ह� (.) हम� तो और चा�हये क�

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1 Amy an=also because I wasn't sort of personally A:t >any of

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