Race Relations Policies and the Political Process

Abstract

We have seen in the previous two chapters that the genesis, legislative implementation and institutionalisation of controls on black immigration was a complex process. Similarly the development of antidiscrimination legislation and policies aimed at promoting greater equality of opportunity for black British citizens has been a thoroughly contradictory process based as much on political expediency as on any commitment to justice and equality. The three major race relations acts passed since 1965, for example, have been highly controversial and have aroused the opposition of those who see them as an attempt to give favourable treatment to blacks over whites in the search for jobs, homes, and other goods. At times this kind of opposition has boiled over into open calls for the dismantling of the major institutions of what is sometimes called the race relations industry (Flew, 1984; Palmer, 1986).