ABSTRACT
Britain’s public collective memory, in regard to ethnicity, is highly selective. Throughout much of the twentieth century pride in the British Empire has gone hand in hand with notions of British tolerance. Additionally, the treatment of minorities within Britain has been subject to the myth of liberality, clouding the history of violence, institutional racism, and social exclusion faced by a variety of communities. Both everyday and extreme manifestations of racism have by and large been perceived as un-British. In turn, as Section One attests, many ethnic minorities have held as a belief (at least initially) the notion of tolerant Britain. These myths have contributed to the way in which the collective memory of racial violence has been remembered, revised, and forgotten.
