critical theory with slavoj zizek: ‘postmodern’ racism is the symptom of multiculturalist late-capitalism, bringing to light the inherent contradiction of the liberal-democratic ideological project. Liberal 'tolerance’ condones the folklorist Other deprived of its substance - like the multitude of 'ethnic cuisines’ in a contemporary megalopolis; however, any 'real’ Other is instantly denounced for its 'fundamentalism’, because the kernel of Otherness resides in the regulation of its jouissance: the 'real Other’ is by definition 'patriarchal’, 'violent’, never the Other of ethereal wisdom and charming customs. One is tempted to reactualize here the old Marcusean notion of 'repressive tolerance’, reconceiving of it as the tolerance of the Other in its aseptic, benign form, which forecloses the dimension of the Real of the Other’s jouissance.