Not So "Simple as That": Institutional Racism and the Limits of Recognition in the Sax/Davies Othello

This essay reads Geoffrey Sax and Andrew Davies's ITV Othello (2001) as not merely an adaptation of Shakespeare's play, but also as an appropriation of the Macpherson Report (1999), the conclusion of William Macpherson's investigation of institutional racism in London's Metropolitan Police Service. The Sax/Davies Othello complicates Macpherson's reliance on the logic of recognition to conceptualize institutional racism. By appropriating the report's rhetoric of uncovering, the film demonstrates how this logic simplifies institutional racism and understates its pervasiveness. Ultimately, the film foregrounds the limits of recognition as a conceptual paradigm for responding to institutional racism, in and beyond Macpherson's context.