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Whiteness, Racial Trauma, and the University
In this book Harshad Keval offers an intensely personal testimony of racial trauma within the academy. Proposing the theoretical model of "white narcissistic structures" the author traces the paradox of academic institutions simultaneously embracing a progressive and neo-liberal "cos-play" while continuing to generate and maintain racial trauma.
144 pages, Paperback
Published January 31, 2025
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June 12, 2026
This is a really difficult book to review, and I’m slightly worried that my review could be misunderstood. So I need to split my review into two parts. The first part is a review of the ideas in the book. The second part is a review of the writing and structure of the book (literally just the mechanics of it, not the information in it). I’m splitting it like this because this book falls into the trap of so much academic writing: great ideas, buried in the most unnecessarily difficult and cringeworthy writing I’ve ever read.
It’s important to note both of these. When Keval is discussing the book, and how it should be weighed up, he writes this:
Its efficacy may be measured however by how it raises these questions, and whether during the reading of this book, a reader might take a moment, a breath, and reflect on a resonation or be able to deploy some of the interrogations here in their practice.
I would argue that it does sometimes achieve this (and did achieve this in me) through its ideas and questions, but often prevents itself from really reaching the reader through its presentation.
First up, the ideas in this book: Keval brilliantly takes apart the way that modern universities go through a sort of anti-racist performance. He calls it a ‘cosplay’ at one point. They present themselves as doing the hard work of decolonisation, and challenging systematic racism, but do so in a way that doesn’t actually require much effort and is still comfortable for the white staff and students.
Keval also presents the true scale of racial harm on people in ways that really hit me hard. His descriptions of what it costs people to endure, every day, a system that is set against them and, even if they are never OBVIOUSLY treated ‘badly’, still excludes them and makes them feel constantly like outsiders, curiosities, complainers, or fodder for the website to make the university look ‘diverse, are visceral and powerful. It blew my mind to discover that this can cause genuine symptoms of complex PTSD in people. That’s how it’s worded in the book. I work on the assumption that if it causes SYMPTOMS of complex PTSD then it… causes complex PTSD? Either way, it’s horrifying.
Keval doesn’t hold back (I mean that in a good way) in attacking the blatant hypocrisy and self-preservation of universities, and in exposing how little will get done until institutions are willing to do work so fundamental that it might threaten their reputation (or their income!). He talks about the ‘domestication’ of decolonisation which, if I’m honest, I’ve seen for myself and is a source of growing discomfort for me. Which it really should be!
These things are hard to read, but I think anyone working at a university should be challenged with these ideas. Perhaps I can’t do all the work myself, but I can, at the very least, do my part, call out injustice and prejudice when I see it, and try to contribute to meaningful change.
On the face of it, so far, this book should be brilliant. So why only one star?
In terms of the actual writing and structure of the book, I really hated reading this book. It was so exhausting to read through, not because of complicated ideas that were too clever for me, not because the themes were so challenging, and not because I’m trying to police the author’s tone, but because reading the prose was like wading through treacle.
Now, admittedly, Keval himself says in the epilogue that he is aware that he ‘polished’ his words:
The craft of academic writing requires polishing our words. I think that our words become so polished, that often they cease to be connected to the reality of the experiences we are supposed to be, intending to write about and for. Throughout the writing of this book […] I both resisted and succumbed to the temptation to polish my words. This may come through in the text in various places…
But I don’t think he quite appreciates the impact of this. It comes through everywhere. This was an ordeal to read. It bears all the worst hallmarks of pretentious, unnecessarily difficult academic writing. And I really mean ‘unnecessarily’. It’s not that the concepts are too lofty for simple folk like me. They’re just dressed up in faff.
Here’s a few examples:
My use of the terms ‘racial trauma’, ‘racial harm’ and ‘racialised harm’, are interchangeably mobilised… - ‘interchangeably mobilised’? Just say ‘used interchangeably’.
Racisms in all their forms in university systems occupy an ambivalent luminescence. - I beg your most ambivalently luminescent pardon?
...a piece of textual imagery... - he's talking about a poem, but has apparently forgotten the word.
Universities that regale in the jargonised lexicon of ‘equality-talk’ may refer to ‘wellbeing’, but are seldom referring to the pain, harm, and sustained neglect of people within the institution who experience deeply embedded and invisible racialisation. - ‘regale in the jargonised lexicon’? No thank you.
The most ridiculous example for me was Keval’s seeming inability to say ‘skin colour’:
…epidermal, biological expression…
...epidermal manifestation of appearance (e.g. skin)...
...epidermal colouration (e.g. skin)...
Then there’s another classic of pretentious academic writing: Lists. You can't just say one thing. You have to say three (academics love the rule of three). Bonus points if the three things basically mean the same thing, or could easily be summed up in one word.
…would also fundamentally ignore, devalue, and separate substantial portions of history, world populations, and entire analytical frameworks…
What type of system, values, and organisation are deemed…
…due to its own historical, epistemic and ontological limitations…
…can only tolerate those who reflect back images and utterance, actions and behaviours…
What kind of system, thinking and practice…
…but actively refract the images, utterances and actions?
Note that those six examples are all taken from the same page. Now stretch that over 119 pages. Can you imagine how tiring it gets?
Then there’s the random use of over-complicated words that range from the bizarrely unnecessary (‘iatrogenesis’) to the downright silly (‘invisibilise’ - a favourite amongst academics).
All of this is thrown in, presumably in an attempt to ‘polish’ the words to make them seem more legitimate and clever, but is often done at the expense of the reader being able to understand the content without re-reading it multiple times, or even at the expense of the sentence making sense. Consider these two examples:
It is also and a component of the liberal good… ‘It is also and a’ - did something get missed here?
The question what kind of system could do this and why is situated here as the answer to a question that, despite numerous demands, appears elusive in its conceptualisation and ability to encourage change.
- That’s exactly how it’s written in the book, down to the punctuation. I can’t make sense of it. Is it saying that the question ‘What kind of system could do this and why?’ is being situation as the answer to an elusive question? What is this supposed to mean? Whatever meaning was intended is completely lost in the garbled, overcomplicated prose.
I could go on with many, many, MANY more examples of tedious, pretentious, bizarrely overcomplicated language, and examples of nonsensical sentences that must have become so complicated that even the author got lost, but I don't think there's much point in dragging it out any further.
I don’t know why Keval had to write like this. I’ve seen footage of him speaking about the book, and he doesn’t speak like this. This kind of writing is becoming increasingly common in academia and it’s always tedious, difficult, and embarrassing. It made what should be a brilliant book into a masterclass of (as one wonderful academic colleague once put it) academic w**k.
It’s important to note both of these. When Keval is discussing the book, and how it should be weighed up, he writes this:
Its efficacy may be measured however by how it raises these questions, and whether during the reading of this book, a reader might take a moment, a breath, and reflect on a resonation or be able to deploy some of the interrogations here in their practice.
I would argue that it does sometimes achieve this (and did achieve this in me) through its ideas and questions, but often prevents itself from really reaching the reader through its presentation.
First up, the ideas in this book: Keval brilliantly takes apart the way that modern universities go through a sort of anti-racist performance. He calls it a ‘cosplay’ at one point. They present themselves as doing the hard work of decolonisation, and challenging systematic racism, but do so in a way that doesn’t actually require much effort and is still comfortable for the white staff and students.
Keval also presents the true scale of racial harm on people in ways that really hit me hard. His descriptions of what it costs people to endure, every day, a system that is set against them and, even if they are never OBVIOUSLY treated ‘badly’, still excludes them and makes them feel constantly like outsiders, curiosities, complainers, or fodder for the website to make the university look ‘diverse, are visceral and powerful. It blew my mind to discover that this can cause genuine symptoms of complex PTSD in people. That’s how it’s worded in the book. I work on the assumption that if it causes SYMPTOMS of complex PTSD then it… causes complex PTSD? Either way, it’s horrifying.
Keval doesn’t hold back (I mean that in a good way) in attacking the blatant hypocrisy and self-preservation of universities, and in exposing how little will get done until institutions are willing to do work so fundamental that it might threaten their reputation (or their income!). He talks about the ‘domestication’ of decolonisation which, if I’m honest, I’ve seen for myself and is a source of growing discomfort for me. Which it really should be!
These things are hard to read, but I think anyone working at a university should be challenged with these ideas. Perhaps I can’t do all the work myself, but I can, at the very least, do my part, call out injustice and prejudice when I see it, and try to contribute to meaningful change.
On the face of it, so far, this book should be brilliant. So why only one star?
In terms of the actual writing and structure of the book, I really hated reading this book. It was so exhausting to read through, not because of complicated ideas that were too clever for me, not because the themes were so challenging, and not because I’m trying to police the author’s tone, but because reading the prose was like wading through treacle.
Now, admittedly, Keval himself says in the epilogue that he is aware that he ‘polished’ his words:
The craft of academic writing requires polishing our words. I think that our words become so polished, that often they cease to be connected to the reality of the experiences we are supposed to be, intending to write about and for. Throughout the writing of this book […] I both resisted and succumbed to the temptation to polish my words. This may come through in the text in various places…
But I don’t think he quite appreciates the impact of this. It comes through everywhere. This was an ordeal to read. It bears all the worst hallmarks of pretentious, unnecessarily difficult academic writing. And I really mean ‘unnecessarily’. It’s not that the concepts are too lofty for simple folk like me. They’re just dressed up in faff.
Here’s a few examples:
My use of the terms ‘racial trauma’, ‘racial harm’ and ‘racialised harm’, are interchangeably mobilised… - ‘interchangeably mobilised’? Just say ‘used interchangeably’.
Racisms in all their forms in university systems occupy an ambivalent luminescence. - I beg your most ambivalently luminescent pardon?
...a piece of textual imagery... - he's talking about a poem, but has apparently forgotten the word.
Universities that regale in the jargonised lexicon of ‘equality-talk’ may refer to ‘wellbeing’, but are seldom referring to the pain, harm, and sustained neglect of people within the institution who experience deeply embedded and invisible racialisation. - ‘regale in the jargonised lexicon’? No thank you.
The most ridiculous example for me was Keval’s seeming inability to say ‘skin colour’:
…epidermal, biological expression…
...epidermal manifestation of appearance (e.g. skin)...
...epidermal colouration (e.g. skin)...
Then there’s another classic of pretentious academic writing: Lists. You can't just say one thing. You have to say three (academics love the rule of three). Bonus points if the three things basically mean the same thing, or could easily be summed up in one word.
…would also fundamentally ignore, devalue, and separate substantial portions of history, world populations, and entire analytical frameworks…
What type of system, values, and organisation are deemed…
…due to its own historical, epistemic and ontological limitations…
…can only tolerate those who reflect back images and utterance, actions and behaviours…
What kind of system, thinking and practice…
…but actively refract the images, utterances and actions?
Note that those six examples are all taken from the same page. Now stretch that over 119 pages. Can you imagine how tiring it gets?
Then there’s the random use of over-complicated words that range from the bizarrely unnecessary (‘iatrogenesis’) to the downright silly (‘invisibilise’ - a favourite amongst academics).
All of this is thrown in, presumably in an attempt to ‘polish’ the words to make them seem more legitimate and clever, but is often done at the expense of the reader being able to understand the content without re-reading it multiple times, or even at the expense of the sentence making sense. Consider these two examples:
It is also and a component of the liberal good… ‘It is also and a’ - did something get missed here?
The question what kind of system could do this and why is situated here as the answer to a question that, despite numerous demands, appears elusive in its conceptualisation and ability to encourage change.
- That’s exactly how it’s written in the book, down to the punctuation. I can’t make sense of it. Is it saying that the question ‘What kind of system could do this and why?’ is being situation as the answer to an elusive question? What is this supposed to mean? Whatever meaning was intended is completely lost in the garbled, overcomplicated prose.
I could go on with many, many, MANY more examples of tedious, pretentious, bizarrely overcomplicated language, and examples of nonsensical sentences that must have become so complicated that even the author got lost, but I don't think there's much point in dragging it out any further.
I don’t know why Keval had to write like this. I’ve seen footage of him speaking about the book, and he doesn’t speak like this. This kind of writing is becoming increasingly common in academia and it’s always tedious, difficult, and embarrassing. It made what should be a brilliant book into a masterclass of (as one wonderful academic colleague once put it) academic w**k.
Displaying 1 of 1 review