#john solomos

[blackbritishreader]

Throughout the twentieth century the black presence in Britain has been viewed by public commentators as constituting a serious moral and cultural problem; a central anxiety focused on the issue of ‘race mixing’ and the impact of immigration on the social and cultural fabric of British society. Clive Harris has shown that black people in seaports such as Liverpool and Cardiff posed a serious moral and political problem for politicians and bureaucrats of the day. Documenting the survey conducted in 1935 by the British Social Hygiene Council, Harris demonstrates how this organisation was preoccupied with inquiring into black sailors ‘sex demands’ with regard to their white partners their promiscuity and the suggestion that white women became addicted to the ‘black sailor’s sex’. In addition to this black men were also connected with the transmission of venereal disease and seen as leading white women into prostitution. Harris goes on to show how the growth in so-called ‘half-caste children’ became another significant feature of the discourse of state officials, particularly in Cardiff and Liverpool and ultimately at the Home Office. These young people were constructed as being ‘marked by a racial trait’ and to ‘mature sexually at an early age’. This moral panic was to be revisited within a more public arena when, after the Second World War, a number of stories were published about children born to white women and black American and West Indian servicemen. These children were viewed as a ‘casualty of war’. One of the Home Office’s proposed solutions to ‘this problem’ was to send these children to America to be brought up with ‘other coloured children’. In the face of opposition from within Britain’s black population this proposal was never implemented.

Racism and Society, John Solomos & Les Back

[blackbritishreader]

Over the years [migrant] workers remained in a restricted range of occupational areas, being overrepresented in low-paid and insecure jobs and working antisocial hours in unhealthy or dangerous environments. Although by the 1970s African-Carribean and Asian people had access to a broader range of occupations, there were still jobs that were 'deemed fit' for ethnic minority workers rather than white workers. In 1984 the Policy Studies Institute publishes a major survey on the state of racial inequality in Britain, covering housing, education and employment. It was shown that black and Asian workers were still generally employed below their qualification and skill level, earned less than white workers in comparable jobs, and were still concentrated in the same industries as 25 years earlier (Brown, 1984). On top of this black and ethnic minority workers had a higher unemployment rate, a rate that was increasing faster than that of the white population. Young ethnic minority people were particularly badly hit.

Race and Racism in Britain [Third Edition]; John Solomos

[blackbritishreader]

In the 1950s and 1960s migrants were primarily recruited to work in sectors that were experiencing labour shortages, such as foundries in the Midlands, textile mills in the North, transport industries in major cities, and the health service. In common with migrant workers across Europe, these workers experienced a high degree of exploitation, discrimination and marginalisation in their economic and social lives. Despite the need for their labour, their presence aroused widespread hostility at all levels, from trade union branches to the government level. Employers recruited immigrants only when there were no white workers to fill the jobs, and white workers, through their unions, often came to an agreement with their employers about the sort of work that immigrants should be offered (Duffield, 1988). At the time a preference for white workers was perceived as natural and legitimate, while immigrant workers were seen as 'an inferior but necessary labour supply'.

Race and Racism in Britain [Third Edition]; John Solomos

[blackbritishreader]

There is a need to understand the connection between race as a political category and wider social processes and conflicts. In Britain the main problem with trying to view minority politics from a purely class perspective is that it is impossible to separate contemporary forms of minority political mobilisation from the everyday experiences of discrimination and exclusion that have operated over five decades. The particular experiences of African-Carribeans, Asians and other minority groups therefore need to be understood, and this necessarily takes us beyond a dogmatic conception of class formation. At the same time it is important to remember that their distinctive historical experiences are joined by a common thread: full of partial denial of citizenship and the rights that accompany it.

Race and Racism in Britain [Third Edition]; John Solomos

[blackbritishreader]

Black and Asian immigrants formed a series of local and national organisations that sought in various ways to challenge their exclusion from equal participation from British society. Indian Workers' Association, the West Indian Standing Conference and other ethnically based groups […] The organisation that received the most public attention was the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD), which was formed in 1964-65 by a coalition of black political groups, white liberals and campaigners against racism. Its main objectives were to eliminate racial discrimination, oppose racially discriminatory legislation and coordinate the work of local and national organisations that were fighting racial discrimination. It collapsed after a brief and highly controversial power struggle during 1967, but before this it took part in public debates on policies to tackle racial discrimination and served as a catalyst for a wide-ranging debate on the need for an autonomous black political organisation to tackle the roots of racial inequality at all levels of British society.

Race and Racism in Britain [Third Edition]; John Solomos

[blackbritishreader]

During the 1960s the political debate on the second generation of young blacks became synonymous with images of alienation, despair, lack of equal opportunity and urban disorder. By the early 1970s...concern was beginning to shift to the involvement of young blacks in mugging and other forms of street crime. This concern reached its peak in 1972-6, when the moral panic over the mugging issue was at its height in the press and official discourses, to the point where Enoch Powell declared mugging to be essentially a black crime (Guardian, 12 April 1976). Mugging as a political phenomenon, according to Hall et al., became associated with black youth because they were seen as suffering most from the cycle of poverty, unemployment and social alienation that was afflicting inner city areas, and having the disadvantage of belonging to a racial group with a 'weak' culture and numerous social problems, such as family breakdown and lack of achievement in school.  These images according to this study, derived partly from commonly held images of race and inner cities and partly from the feeling of discomfort that was developing in British society as a whole about the position of black communities and their place in the dominant institutions.

Race and Racism in Britain [Third Edition]; John Solomos

[blackbritishreader]

In Britain, unlike in the US, there has been no intellectual and political tradition to support the view that affirmative action is a legitimate policy tool to tackle the effects of racial and other social inequalities. Rather, successive policies on racial inequality from the 1960s held together by the notion that the main objective of state intervention in this field were to secure free competition between individuals and to eliminate barriers created by racial discrimination. There objectives were pursued through legislation aimed at outlawing discrimination and through administrative intervention by quasigovernmental bodies such as the Commission for Racial Equality […] Research on employment indicated that equal opportunity policies were having little effect on discrimination in employment, although they did reduce its more overt forms.

Race and Racism in Britain [Third Edition]; John Solomos

[blackbritishreader]

What is clear is that the late 1940s to the late 1950s was not a period of laissez faire in relation to black immigration. Rather it was one of intense debate in government departments and public circles about the impact of black immigration on housing, the welfare state, crime and other social problems. It is important to note, however, that these debates were not purely about the supposed characteristics of black immigrants. They were also about the effect that black immigration would have on the 'racial character of the British people' and the national identity. Harris (1988) makes this point clear when he argues that the debates on black immigration during 1950s reinforced a radicalised construction of Britishness that excluded or included people on the ground of race, defined by colour: "When individuals like Marquis or Salisbury spoke of maintaining the English way of life, they were not simply referring to economic or regional folk patterns, but explicitly to the preservation of 'the racial character of the English people'. We have developing here a process of subjectification grounded in racicalised construction of 'British' Subject which excludes and includes people on the basis of 'race'/skin colour."

Race and Racism in Britain [Third Edition]; John Solomos