Race, Racism, and Politics in Society

Paper Summary:

Politics in Britain have greatly influenced the public in many ways, not least in their opinions. The following discussion looks at British immigration and asylum policies and their effect on the existence of prejudice and discrimination against minorities. It outlines the importance of the terms ?race? and ?racism? and the explanations and types that have been identified. An outline is provided of how the different types have been encompassed into immigration policies and the effect they had on popular and accepted views and what, if anything, has changed. A timeline of political events and legislation is analysed in depth to provide evidence and reasons for the existence of racism in contemporary Britain.

From the Paper:

"Biologically race is a false concept, but it is real in sociological terms, in that people classify others as belonging to various races. Thus, some argue that there are no races but "social processes through which social relationships become racialised: represented ideologically as entailing race" . Thus, discrimination (i.e. political exclusion of migrants due to ?cultural incompatibility) is explained by some social scientists in terms of New Racism. It has its origins in the political crisis affecting Britain with the ascendancy of the political right in the 1980's. Its focus is ?the defence of the mythic "British/English way of life" in the face of attack from enemies outside ("Argies", "Iraqis"), and within ("black communities")? . Racism, in these terms, is defined as discrimination based on the notion that it is justifiable to demand physical separation due to different cultural ways of living. There are downfalls to this theory. Although it talks of culture, it primarily concerns itself with colour. Some argue that the notion of new racism produces blackness and Englishness as "mutually exclusive categories" . Thus the argument arises that there is nothing new about new racism and its notions are fundamentally based around that of old biological racism."

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