Book description
Based on a two-year research project funded by the Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC), this book explores why many of those involved
in racially motivated crime seem to be struggling to cope with economic,
cultural and emotional losses in their own lives. Drawing on in-depth
biographical interviews with perpetrators of racist crimes and focus
group discussions with ordinary people living in the same communities,
the book explores why it is that some people, and not others, feel
inclined to attack immigrants and minority ethnic groups. The
relationships between ordinary racism, racial harassment and the
politics of the British National Party are also explored, as are the
enduring impacts of deindustrialisation, economic failure and
immigration on white working class communities. The book assesses the
legacy of New Labour policy on community cohesion, hate crime and
respect in terms of its impact on racist attitudes and racist incidents,
and explores how it is that racist attacks, including racist murders,
continue to happen. The book concludes by using psychoanalytically
informed psychosocial concepts to explore examples of how and why
race-thinking can be put aside and what it is that needs to happen to
get perpetrators to loosen or shed their emotional investments in hatred
and violence.
