ABSTRACT
Racism is a belief that ‘races’ (or ethnic groups) have distinctive characteristics, which form some sort of natural hierarchy, giving a select few superiority over others. Although racism refers to a varied and complex pattern of discriminations, including inter-group conflict, the most common form of racism is that directed against ‘black and minority ethnic’ groups by their ‘white’ counterparts. This is unsurprising given the tendency to view whiteness as being a kind of identity without racial qualities, a non-raced norm, which allowed global expansion and national rule, itself resulting in violent practices of imperialism and colonialism; the African slave trade; immigration regulations; Jim Crow; and the Aboriginal Stolen Generations. Racism and race inequality thrive where we find views that a racial hierarchy is natural and needs to remain in place. Such conditions problematise victims of racism by presenting them as over-sensitive troublemakers, via a process of victim-blaming. This process involves demonising black and minority ethnic populations, reinforcing ideas about their social deviance, as well as representing white perpetrators as the victims of black and minority ethnic presence.
