Race Across the Channel: Challenging Racism Denial in France and the UK

Dr Reza Zia-Ebrahimi (Department of History), Rokhaya Diallo and Grace Ly (Activists and Co-creators of Kiffe ta race), with contributions from Professor Nicola Rollock and filmmaker Rajesh Thind

Race Across the Channel is an Activist-in-Residence project led by Dr Reza Zia-Ebrahimi (Department of History) in collaboration with French antiracist activists and podcasters Rokhaya Diallo and Grace Ly. The project explores how political and media elites in France and the UK construct narratives that deny, invert, or demonise antiracist scholarship and activism.

Through a series of bilingual podcast episodes and public-facing media outputs, the team tackled questions often left unspoken in public discourse: What makes racism “deniable”? How are antiracist voices reframed as threats? And what can transnational solidarity offer in the face of these discursive attacks?

The project produced three episodes of the Kiffe ta race podcast, featuring Reza himself, Professor Nicola Rollock, and filmmaker Rajesh Thind. The episode featuring Reza became the most streamed in the podcast’s history, with over 25,000 combined views and downloads. The project also provided social media and video editing training for Reza, enabling him to build a more accessible and engaged digital presence.

All content is being translated and transcribed in both English and French, and will be housed on a dedicated bilingual website. By drawing connections between UK and French racial politics—and refusing the silences imposed by racism denial—the project opens space for new forms of cross-border resistance.

For full details of the project, please see the PDF case study below.

Race Across the Channel: Challenging Racism Denial in France and the UK – PDF Case Study