'Broken down by race ...': questioning social categories in redress policies

Arguing that choices have to be made between forms of redress, on the one hand, and progress towards a non-racial society and social cohesion and avoidance of group-based social conflict on the other, I propose the 'necessity of utopian thinking' for debate. It is not redress (or 'transformation') that it at issue but the form that it takes. Redress, in its several necessary forms, cannot be constricted by a narrow focus on race. Nor can the consequences of such a near-exclusive focus be ignored: consequences of exclusion or marginalisation of certain factors such as class, ethnicity and gender; consequences of strengthening race thinking; consequences of failure in effectively addressing inequality and poverty; consequences of weakening moves to ensure social cohesion.