"Our school won't hire any Black teachers": a study of anti-Black racism in China

This thesis aims to theorise anti-Black racism in China on the basis of an empirical study of the experiences of Black English teachers. It aims to address the reality of racism in China’s English education industry in order to reflect on the racial ideology in wider Chinese society. Informed by the conceptualisation of English language education as a race-making technology inherited from colonialism (Wang, 2024), this thesis investigates whether coloniality fosters anti-Black racism in China. Yet rather than adding to the body of studies on Chinese people’s racist treatment of Black people in China, this thesis focuses on the victims of racism: Black people and their experiences. Drawing upon eleven in-depth semi-structured interviews and one diary study document, the thesis offers three main findings. Firstly, in their professional lives, Black English teachers face systemic racism from both governmental visa policies and individual school regulations during recruitment as well as teaching. Secondly, in their personal lives, all participants have encountered microaggressions and explicit racial slurs on a daily basis; some have experienced racially and sexually motivated attacks but received no protection from the police. Lastly, enactments of racism against Black people in both personal and professional settings have a common feature: the manifestation of a racial hierarchy in which White people are ranked first, Chinese people second, and Black people last. This racial classification reflects the colonial temporality in Chinese society in which China is placed behind Western modernity and ahead of the rest of the world (Meinhof, 2017). This ranking of modernisation stages signifies the ranking of peoples, such that White supremacy is upheld and anti-Black racism perpetuated. This thesis provides a theoretical framework essential for future research on racism in China. It aims to make a decisive contribution to the transnational sociology of race and racism, China studies, postcolonialism, and decolonial theory by mapping out the position of modern China in the global paradigm of race and coloniality.