ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns various aspects of ‘race', racism and social welfare in contemporary Britain. In both Britain and the United States, the concept of underclass to describe those segments of the population locked in long term poverty has entered the current vocabulary of domination. It reveals that especially devastating in the most hard-pressed working class neighbourhoods and estates which bear the brunt of robberies, assaults, and racial violence. The concept of underclass bears heavily down on the most impoverished and in particular on the black working class poor where it joins easily with longer traditions of biological racism to justify the enduring plight of so many black peoples. The analysis of dismal times it is important to note that there has been resistance at a variety of levels to this neo-liberal onslaught both in Britain and elsewhere. Overall, it is a context that ought to provoke deep anxieties amongst those who are committed to social justice and human dignity.
