I’m very grateful to Matt Walton for responding in two guest posts the week before last to my analysis of ethnicity and race in Myanmar. As ever, his thinking is rich and stimulating. At the same time, though, I feel more remains to be said, and again I’m writing to work my way through that. Perhaps the easiest way to explain myself is as follows.

It’s possible to imagine the main objections Matt raises in his posts also being directed at a proponent of US critical race theory, on which he drew in his original article. First, the concept of race is rather vague. Does it relate to nationality, skin colour, religion, or language and other cultural practices? Second, alongside purported racial discrimination the US has many other forms of privilege and oppression. Women are disadvantaged, and it’s clearly much more beneficial to be a WASP male than any other form of whiteness.

Equally, the reply of the critical race theorist can be anticipated. One, in use here is a specific understanding (cited in Matt’s essay and repeated in my post) of race as an ascriptive category generated by physical characteristics beyond individual control. Two, whilst the US certainly is characterized by many forms of privilege and oppression, racial discrimination is uniquely important. It resulted in slavery before the Civil War, brutally repressive Jim Crow laws for a century after Reconstruction, and continuing structural disadvantage even after the triumphs of the civil rights movement.

I believe parallel arguments can be made about Myanmar today. For sure being a Bamar Buddhist male is the best position to be in, and many forms of disadvantage play off that core normative identity. But there is a particularly damaging line separating Rohingyas from everyone else. To my mind, the only satisfactory way to describe this latter state of affairs is racial discrimination.

On my further point that some other Muslims are being tainted by association with Rohingyas – yes, clearly the category is religious, not racial. But I don’t see this as a conceptual confusion. Rather, it builds on demonstrable empirical fact to argue that racial discrimination directed at Rohingyas is now so potent that anyone linked to them either by blood (South Asian) or by religion (Muslim) is in danger of being subjected to similar forms of oppression.

Again, I greatly appreciate Matt’s willingness to debate these issues with me. I join him in hoping others will add to the perspectives each of us has presented over the past three weeks.