It’s not “cultural diversity”: it’s racialization.
Talking about “culturally different people” when referring to migrants or racialized people is not harmless. It is a softened way of avoiding the word racism and hide the hierarchies that still shape our societies.
Cultural diversity concerns everyone: every person carries different experiences, values, and worldviews shaped by their age, social context, and life journey. So it is not only people of foreign origin who are “culturally different”!
Calling a racialized person who was born or raised in Italy “culturally different” is a form of symbolic violence. It means overlooking the fact that it is not culture that marks them, but racialization.
And culturalizing difference serves only to make power invisible: people experience discrimination not because they are different, but because they are treated as different.
Talking about “equality in diversity” sounds good, but it conceals an uncomfortable truth: colonial relationships, skin color, and perceived origin continue to determine who has access to rights, opportunities, and recognition.
In Europe, being of English origin is not the same as being of Moroccan origin.
This is why anti-racist movements speak of racialized people: to name injustice, expose hierarchies, and restore visibility to those who are systematically pushed to the margins.
Only by acknowledging this can we build a truly anti-racist and critical approach to social education.
