How and why did the new racism gain ascendancy in the 1980s?

In order to answer this question, it is important to start by explaining what is meant by new racism, as well as to set the socio-political scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s due to the growth of new racism in the 1980s being embedded in the historical context of that time. New Racism is a theory coined in 1981 by the Marxist professor Martin Baker to describe the structure of concepts that made anti-immigration policy formation possible within Thatchers Conservative government (Barker, 1981). It focused on cultural differences between race, rather than widely detested Neo-Nazi, Social-Darwinist views of biological difference between races. The discourse of the time focused on scaremongering the general public with imagined (Anderson, 1991) ideas of ethnic communities and immigrants. Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister in 1979 following five years of Labour leadership and implemented new economic and social policies, as well as immigration policies akin to the ostracised Conservative MP Enoch Powells views in the 1960s (Smith, 1994). A key aid in Thatchers rise to power was the Winter of Discontent that had occurred the winter before the general election and had rendered Callaghans Labour party unpopular. In the late 1970s and early 1980s striking was commonplace, unemployment was high and inflation reached a peak of 20% in 1980 (Rodgers, 2005). Moreover Britain was to become a net importer of goods for the first time as many unproductive industries were closed. Thatchers New Right policies included a move to free market economics that culminated in the Big Bang in the City of London (Clemons & Webber, 1990) and a move to social authoritarianism. Establishing the social, political and economic situation of the 1980s is important in understanding why new racism grew the way it did as it was very

much borne from these contexts of the time, although it has adapted to the modern era and is no longer new. This essay will argue that new racism gained ascendancy because of the racial discourse of the Conservative government that stated the British populations genuine fear of losing its way of life. This essay will examine New Right political views that sought to justify the inevitable difference between us and racialised others whilst implementing a shift from pseudo-scientific biological explanations to cultural difference. Moreover the historical link between economic hardship and discrimination will be explored as a theory to why this discourse became popular at this time. Furthermore, the close ties between New Right politicians and influential media editors will be examined as a means of spreading racial discourse, and finally how the representation of riots in the 1980s as being highly racialised contributed to the popularisation of new racism discourse. This essay will also contemplate whether this nationalist discourse, mixed with the much supported conflict in the Falklands, was a smoke screen to the harsh economic cuts of the time. In a debate at the House of Commons in 1976 Conservative MP in the opposition William Whitelaw remarked: The principles of the fair and tolerant society which we seek to uphold will be undermined if individual fears and resentments are allowed to grow (Hansard cited in Barker, 1981, p.13) He was making the point that the open, democratic, equal society of our land can only be stretched or strained so far before an inevitable backlash from the British public. The language used, as with many political speeches from Conservative MPs at this time, is predetermined and cleverly thought through. Through this language and racialised discourse, terms such as alien invasion and swamped were used to label inward migration from Afro-Caribbean countries or the Indian Sub-Continent despite the fact that Britain

only experienced net migration gain in the 1990s. These speeches resonated with much of the general public and provided a concept of something to defend and therefore an imagined threat that justifies the publics fears (Barker, 1981). It was this use of scare mongering that constructed anti-immigration ideology in Britain. As with most racial or racist discourse, the idea of them being dangerous, bad, problematic by default meant we are safe, good, saviours and helped nationalist views grow (Brubaker, 2009). Imagined communities are presented both through the imagined Victorian values that members of the New Right held and through the imagined danger of the invasion of immigrant communities. Moreover Powells idea that it was whites who were being discriminated against by immigrants rather than vice versa helped the impression of genuine fear take hold (Barker, 1981). This racist discourse was justified, however, through the assertion that prejudice between different racial groups is natural and therefore inevitable. It is important here to distinguish between racist and racialist. Racism is the belief that the world is divided into different racial groups and attributes of those groups make them less or more desirable or inferior, superior. Racialism is the acceptance of different race categories through social and cultural difference without believing in inferiority or superiority of different races (Snyder, 2001). Extreme racist discourse was extremely unpopular amongst the majority of the population following the pseudo-scientific approaches of the Nazi party and so implicating cultural difference as a threat was used as a justification for the government and as a catalyst for the implication of tough immigration policy. Huntington described the theory that the source of conflict in the post-Cold War world would come from cultural and religious difference in his book The Clash of Civilizations (Huntington, 1996).

Historically there has been a link between recession and discrimination. As was explained in the introduction, Thatchers new governments monetarist policies that were in place to lower inflation had driven the economy into recession. Patrick Taran, Senior Migration Specialist at the ILO International Migration Programme states: In time of economic insecurity migrants always seem to be among the first to be blamed (International Labour Organisation , 2011) This link has been seen during the most recent global recession and current economic hardship. In 2007, then Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a controversial speech that many regarded as racist. The focus of the speech was British Jobs for British Workers and received criticism from David Cameron as being far-right (Parkinson, 2007). Even more recently is an example from Greece where immigrants are being used as scapegoats. Opinion polls there are showing that the far-right Golden Dawn party are now the third most supported party in Greece (The Economist , 2012). This theory can be seen during the mid-1970s as the popularity of the National Front far-right party was at its highest. However it is worth noting here that studies have shown both age discrimination (The Guardian, 2012) and discriminatory hiring practices (Loya and Associates, 2010) also increase during a recession and so caution must be taken in assessing how much the recession was to blame for the ascendancy of new racism. Furthermore, recession in the United Kingdom ended in 1982 and the economy was growing at a peak of 5% in 1988 (Rodgers, 2005), therefore this theory can only be used to explain the initial ascendancy of new racism and cannot explain its continued popularity throughout the 1980s. This essay suggests that much of the anti-immigration discourse of Thatchers New Right was an

attempt to capture less extreme electors who had swung their vote to the National Front due to lack of other options on tough immigration. Due to the observation that new racism is a more subtle form than the old variety of slavery, lynching, and apartheid, many forms are discursive (Van Dijk, 2000). They are expressed as common-sense ideas and are found in everyday conversations, films, propaganda, debates, think tanks, pressure groups, the media and many more (Van Dijk, 2000). This essay suggests that the political ideology of the New Right was extrapolated through the medium of the media and pressure groups to add ballast to the new racist discourse and increase its popularity. Key figures in the New Right included the editors of the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times. As Barker (1981, p.15) states, The Daily Mail ... has had a far from small role in developing the new racism. This support from large media companies that had a wide outreach meant that the minority resistance or white dissidence became even more difficult and less vocal as support for the new racist ideology grew (Van Dijk, 2000). Headlines frequently accused immigrants of causing problems over other reasonable explanations such as the Daily Mails 1986 headline Immigrants Paralyse Heathrow. The government had introduced a system of compulsory visas to Britain from certain Commonwealth countries and airport staff could not cope with the increase in passengers trying to beat the introduction of this new law (Jackson, 1989). The majority of people do not have time to check the legitimacy or bias of press reports, and Barker states in his critique of the controversial Newson Report that the story most people remember is the one conveyed in the press and that we are dependent on how the facts are presented to us by the media (Barker, 1997, p.29).

This theme of media influence over the growth of new racism continues when concerned with the race riots in Brixton and Peckham in 1985. In September and October 1985 after the riots, 938 race related headlines were included in seven major newspapers. This is equivalent to seven articles per paper per day over the two months. This can be compared to 1989 where there were 974 race related articles in the same seven papers, but this time spread over the first six months of the year (Van Dijk, 1991). Another key factor in the ascendancy of new racism in the 1980s is the strong nationalist feeling that Thatcher made resonate within the ordinary British citizen. The Prime Minister was at the height of her popularity after the invasion of the Falkland Islands that helped reinforce nationalist feeling within the United Kingdom. It has been argued that the scapegoating of immigrants and rallying of nationalist ideology and discourse was used as a smoke screen to new economic policies of the time: bitter tasting marketing economics were sweetened and rendered palatable by great creamy dollops of nationalistic custard (Smith, 1994). New racism, therefore, is a theory that was very much borne out of the historical contexts of the time. Britain was coming out of a recession and nationalist rhetoric was entwined in political and media discourse. The ordinary British citizen was indoctrinated with negative ideas of imagined communities through the use of shrewdly chosen political language that convinced them they had a genuine fear and must act on this fear. The justification of this ideology as natural and inevitable helped gain support amongst the more politically central citizens, whilst the ideology itself gained support amongst swing voters shifting towards the extreme right. The case must be put forward that the nationalist rhetoric and discourse was a sharp marketing ploy to distract electors from the cut backs, closures, and job losses that

were harming the economy. It may be useful that the extent of the popularity of new racism may be hard to quantify as a coordinated media and political drive of the ideology meant those who disagreed had little chance of procuring support. New racism is no longer new and can adapt, such as in the British jobs for British workers speech of Gordon Browns in 2007. Another legacy of the New Right today is the dangers of close ties between the press and politicians that have been most recently observed during the Leveson Inquiry into Press ethics in the British media. However, as always there may be two sides to new racism. Is it really racist or is it protectionism? Some believe that a country has a right to protect its own ethno-culture without being branded as racist. Furthermore, is it in fact racist to create a threat to the home nations culture with continued immigration and lack of assimilation? (See Landsburg, 2005 and Buchanan, 2005)

Bibliography
Anderson, B., 1991. Imagined Communities. 2 ed. London: Verso. Barker, M., 1981. The New Racism. London: Junction Books. Barker, M., 1997. The Newson Report: A case study in 'Common Sense'. In: M. Barker & J. Petley, eds. Ill Effects: The Media/Violence debate . London: Routledge, pp. 27-47. Brubaker, R., 2009. Ethnicity, Race, and Nationalism. The Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 35, pp. 21-42. Buchanan, P., 2005. Is Protectionism Racism?. [Online] Available at: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-protectionism-racism/ [Accessed 20 November 2012]. Clemons, E. & Webber, B., 1990. London's Big Bang: A case study of information technology, Competitive Impact, and Organisational Change. Journal of Management Information Systems, 6(4), pp. 41-60. Huntington, S., 1996. The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster. International Labour Organisation , 2011. World of Work: Racial Discrimination and the Global Economic Downturn, Turin: ILO . Jackson, P., 1989. Maps of Meaning: An introduction to Cultural geography. London: Routledge . Landsburg, S., 2005. Xenophobia and Politics. [Online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2005/0328/046.html [Accessed 20 November 2012]. Loya and Associates, 2010. Discriminatory hiring practices appear to increase during a recession. [Online] Available at: http://knowledgebase.findlaw.com/kb/2010/May/98143.html [Accessed 30 10 2012]. Parkinson, J., 2007. What does 'British Jobs' pledge mean?. [Online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7097837.stm [Accessed 30 10 2012].

Rodgers, W., 2005. Government Under Stress: Britain's Winter of Discontent 1979. The Political Quarterly, 55(2), pp. 171-179. Smith, A. M., 1994. New Right Discourse on Race and Sexuality: British 1968 - 1990. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Snyder, L., 2001. The idea of Racialism: Its Meaning and History . In: E. Cashmore & J. Jennings, eds. Racism. London: SAGE, pp. 91-97. The Economist , 2012. Immigrants as Scapegoats. [Online] Available at: http://www.economist.com/node/21564261 [Accessed 30 10 2012]. The Guardian, 2012. Recession hits middle-aged woman worst, new research finds. [Online] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/08/recession-hits-middle-agedwomen-hardest [Accessed 30 10 2012]. Van Dijk, T. A., 1991. Racism and the Press. London: Routledge. Van Dijk, T. A., 2000. New(s) Racism: A Discourse Analytic Approach. In: S. Cottle, ed. Ethnic Minorities and the Media. Buckingham: Open University Press, pp. 33-49.

How does an understanding of the social construction of race critically challenge media representation? Use a political event, film, advertisement, or other case study to demonstrate your argument. The contested idea of race has been constructed, developed, and questioned since its pseudo-scientific beginnings in the nineteenth century where it was used as a justification for colonialism and slavery. In its early stages media representation of race was mostly crude and exploitative, and based on inferiority or superiority. Since the end of the Second World War, however, the theory of biological difference and racial hierarchies have been greatly debunked in scientific practice; so why is the myth of race still prevalent in its representation from media sources? Representation, or literally re-presentation is present within all media sources as it is, by definition, a new presentation of the reality seen around us. Every source in the media from a newspaper article to a magazine are representations of someone elses ideas and are codified into a set of signs and symbols to be read by the target audience. The media are particularly important as they produce, reproduce and transform different ideologies (Hall, 2003).The title of this essay is ambiguous as it does not specify a time scale, and representations of race in the media have morphed and altered over time. Moreover, racialized images in the media are intrinsically ambiguous as they may hold contradictory or multiple meanings in the eye of the viewer. This essay aims to briefly explain the changing paradigms of race studies from its early stages to the present day, as this will seek to explain why race has been represented in certain ways. This section will also aim to explain that representation of race in the media is embedded in the historical context of that time. With regards to the present day representation of race in the media this essay will discuss how both positive and negative images should viewed with scepticism and why the difference between the denotations and connotations of these images are more important in debating this issue. The use of stereotyping as a signifying practice within

media representation will also be discussed within this essay. A Daily Mail article with the headline White men cant run, apart from this one will be used as a case study to demonstrate how race is represented as real and quantifiable, and not a social construct and this will be caveated with recent research into explaining the facts behind the monopoly of African-American and Afro-Caribbean sprinting success. This case study is also useful in linking back to issues of stereotyping in the media. It is widely believed that ancient civilizations knew nothing about race. Instead, another variable was used: civilized or barbaric - it was possible to be both white and barbaric, or black and civilized (Nayak & Jeffrey, 2011). The study of racial difference has its roots within empire building and imperialism. Race was a scientific fact at the time that aimed to divide the people of the world in a hierarchy. Arthur de Gobineau stated in his 1853-55 Essai sur l'inegalit des races humaines that the world was divided into three clear types of human: white, black and yellow with the negroid variety..the lowest, and stands at the bottom of the ladder (Puzzo, 1964). The paradigm at this time was white supremacist and based on pseudo-scientific connections between man and the environment. The methods used would be anthropometric techniques such as craniometry, and would be linked with other tests such as intelligence testing. Representations of race in the media during the 19th century, therefore, were unsubtle and crude, such as the pears soap advertisement that featured a black baby washing himself white (Fig.1). The representation is clear: black is a result of uncleanliness, and simply by washing you can become white, pure, and everything associated with purity black is unhygienic and dirty.

Figure 1 - 'Pear's Soap' Advertisement

These advertisements are seen as overtly racist today, however at the time many believed in the hierarchical nature of races and these were typical of the white supremacist advertisements of the time. For example, there is similar advertisement by Fairy, showing a white child asking a black child Why doesnt your mamma wash you with Fairy soap? A lot of the advertisements during times of western imperialism seemed to irrationally force the Wests idea of modernity universally. As can be seen from these examples, the representation of race in the media in the 19th century appears to be focused on Africa and as black being barbaric, uncivilised, primitive and unclean not only this but white appears to be represented as the answer and saviour to the uncivilised world, for example as seen in The White Mans Burden. These representations of the great white European explorer and his adventures with the exotic world of the black African other were popular as they were the sole form of imagery and imagination of imperial conquests for the domestic audience (Hall, 1997). This shows how the representation of race in the media has been embedded in its historical context. Since the end of the Second World War, however, belief in a biological difference of races has been largely debunked and fell out of favour with many anthropologists and geographers due to its connotations with Nazi Germany. Since the 1960s there has been a paradigm shift from scientific, biological study to empiricist, race relations, and social constructionism (Bonnett, 1997). This, combined with the decolonisation of many empires, led to media representations of race being less overtly discriminatory against the other. It could be described as a more subtle form of racism (Van Dijk, 2000). Many connotations can be drawn from the representation in the media and there is no answer to the image what the image is trying to represent is in the eye of the beholder. However, a racialialised

difference is still represented within the media, despite the fact race is now largely proved to be a myth. Although race representation in more modern times is less overtly racist, a few recent advertisements have appeared to represent racial difference in a backward fashion, with images appearing to portray the other in an inferior way. An example of this is Intels advert that showed six black sprinters in the starting position normally adopted before a race, with a suited up white man standing in the middle of them (figure 2). This advert faced criticism after parallels were drawn between it and plantations and slavery.

Figure 2 Intel Advertisement

As this essay discussed earlier, negative images of race were frequently used during the era of British colonial conquests. However, does this mean that positive images of race and identity help with issues surrounding racial difference? Stuart Hall critiques this theory by suggesting that black politics can no longer be conducted through the role reversals of a good black subject and a bad white subject. This is because by saying that all black people

are good, is equal to saying that all black people are the same (Hall, 1993). This appears to suppress the heterogeneity of identities and cultures present within the black community (Hall, 1993). Moreover, by changing the role that a black subject appears to have in a media source only changes the image itself and the denotation of the image rather than challenging the politics of representations within the image. Another issue raised here is that by no individual can be representative of an entire community and therefore an argument could be that the personality, culture, identity of a character in the media could be taken on by the audience to be true and therefore helps to mould a stereotype relating to that subject. The case study that this essay is using to back up the arguments in this essay is an article written during the London 2012 Olympics for the Daily Mail. The headline for this article is White men cant run, apart from this one: Lemaitre running in 200m against Bolt and Co. Firstly, I will start with the issues surrounding this headline. By the sweeping statement white men cant run it could be suggested that this infers black men can run or non-whites can run which could be further analysed to all black men can run and so on. Furthermore, by singling out Lemaitre, the sole white sprinter and adding Bolt and Co it simplifies and reduces the black athletes into a single entity almost Lemaitre and the black guys. The paper goes on to describe research into the ACTN3 gene that is alleged to be more commonly found in people of West African decent than European decent. This gene appears to prove a biological theory of race difference and be flirting with the historical and dangerous line of scientific and biological reasons for racial difference. Furthermore, this article references a documentary by former America sprinter Michael Johnson that looked into the taboo subject of black superiority in sprinting. This is when the

article refers to the slave trade and a possibility of the hard manual work and survival of the fittest that equipped black athletes for success on the track. Either the author was unaware of the connotations survival of the fittest had within the race relations of the past a major contributor to British colonialism and Nazi Germany was this social Darwinism attitude to survival of the fittest attitude and the organic growth of states. The representation of race in the media has been around for many years, from its overtly racist roots of white supremacy and the inferiority of the other to promote various exotic products, to the ambiguity of representation and the politics of the images relevant in the media today. It is not about looking at positive and negative images that are represented in the media, but far more useful to look at the politics of representation and the codes, images, symbols, and signifying practices that are prevalent within the source. Stereotyping is common in reducing a community or communities into a few, essential, simple characteristics which are represented as fixed. Seeing as race is a social construct, any characteristic given to a particular ethnicity through the medium of the media can be seen as either stereotyping or misrepresentation because a single person of small group of people can never be representative of a larger community.

Bibliography

Bonnett, A., 1997. Geography, 'Race', And Whiteness: Invisible Traditions and current challenges. Area, 29(3), pp. 193-199. De Gobineau, A., 1915. The inequality of Human Races. London: G.P Putnam's Son's. Hall, S., 1993. New Ethnicities. In: J. Donald & A. Rattansi, eds. Race, Culture, and Difference . London: Sage, pp. 252-259. Hall, S., 1997. The Spectacle of the 'Other'. In: S. Hall, ed. Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices. London: Sage, pp. 223-291. Hall, S., 2003. The Whites of their Eyes: Racist ideology and the media. In: G. Dines & J. Humez, eds. Gender, Race and Class in Media: A Text Reader. London: Sage, pp. 8993. Mcevoy, J., 2012. White men can't run, except for this one: Lemaitre running in 200m against Bolt and Co. [Online] Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2185692/London2012-Olympics-White-men-run-apart-Christophe-Lemaitre.html [Accessed 26 November 2012]. Nayak, A. & Jeffrey, A., 2011. Geographical Thought: An Introduction to Ideas in Human Geography. 1st ed. Edinburgh: Pearson. Puzzo, D., 1964. Racism and the Western Tradition. Journal of the History of Ideas, 24(4), pp. 579-586. Van Dijk, T., 1991. Racism and the Press. London: Routledge. Van Dijk, T. A., 2000. New(s) Racism: A Discourse Analytic Approach. In: S. Cottle, ed. Ethnic Minorities and the Media. Buckingham: Open University Press, pp. 33-49.