There is no racism without a language. The point is not that acts of racial violence are only words but rather that they have to have a word…Racism always betrays the perversion of man, the “talking animal.” It institutes, writes, inscribes, prescribes. A system of marks, it outlines space in order to assign forced residence or closed off borders. It does not discern, it discriminates.
-Jacques Derrida, “Racism’s Last Word”