ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a possible alternative explanation, it is also necessary to suggest their main limitations. As an organised network of bodies and agencies acting in the national and, it is often assumed, moral interests of society, the post-war state has responded directly to all observable forms of racism. As an ‘executive committee’ of the ruling class, the state has responded neither to racism per se nor to the demands of black groups. Partnership schemes and programmes to very specific community relations projects and programmes in, for instance, the fields of housing, education, employment, welfare, health, legal advice, and language tuition, these policies and practices are also seen by the moral functionalists as concrete evidence of the state’s moral political commitment to combat racism, and to regulate its expression.
