The Empire Strikes Back

1. Racism is fundamentally intertwined with the organic crisis of British capitalism.

The central theme of this book is that the construction of an authoritarian state in Britain is fundamentally intertwined with the elaboration of popular racism in the 1970s.

Intertwined crises. The economic decline of post-war Britain in the 1970s was not merely a financial failure but an "organic crisis" affecting political, ideological, and cultural spheres. To manage this crisis of hegemony, the British state and dominant classes constructed "race" as the primary scapegoat and signifier of national decline.

Constructing the scapegoat. Rather than viewing racism as an exogenous, static prejudice, it must be understood as an endogenous force constantly reshaped by the state to secure consent during structural crises. This process of "racialization" allowed the state to divert public attention away from the systemic failures of capitalism and toward an "alien" threat.

Historical roots. The modern racism of the 1970s is not a simple relic of the colonial past but a reconstructed "racism at home" tailored to a declining social formation. It operates by:

• Segmenting the working class along racial lines to prevent unified class action.
• Legitimating repressive state interventions under the guise of maintaining public order.
• Redefining "Britishness" to exclude black and Asian settlers who arrived during the post-war labor boom.

2. The state manages its crisis of legitimacy through authoritarian statism and racialized policing.

Increasingly the state has appeared to absorb all the pressures and tensions of the economic and political class struggle into itself, and then been torn apart, by its conspicuous lack of success...

Shift to coercion. As the post-war social-democratic consensus collapsed, the British state transitioned from indirect social control to direct, rationalized state coercion, a phenomenon termed "authoritarian statism." This shift concentrated power within the executive and eroded traditional civil liberties, transforming every citizen—particularly black citizens—into an a priori suspect.

Managing the threat. The state constructed a siege mentality, framing political dissent, trade union militancy, and black resistance as a unified "enemy within." By criminalizing these groups, the state sought to redeem its lack of economic success through a draconian "law and order" campaign.

Racialized containment. The policing of black communities became the frontline of this authoritarian drift. The state utilized:

• Saturation policing and "sus" laws to restrict the movement of black youth.
• The ideological construction of "mugging" to justify aggressive street sweeps.
• Paramilitary units like the Special Patrol Group to suppress localized uprisings.

3. Common-sense racism pathologizes black family structures to obscure structural inequality.

A 'fakelore of black pathology' easily becomes translated to a 'folklore of white supremacy'.

Blaming the family. Common-sense racist ideologies in Britain systematically pathologize black household structures to explain away the socio-economic failures of the state. By locating the roots of educational failure and youth criminality within the black family, dominant discourses successfully naturalize structural inequalities.

Gendered stereotypes. This pathological model relies on highly gendered, racist caricatures of black mothers and fathers. The West Indian family is depicted as an unstable, fatherless "matriarchy" that fails to discipline its children, while the Asian family is framed as a stifling, tyrannical patriarchy that isolates women and causes generational culture clash.

Ideological consequences. These common-sense constructions serve several vital functions for the ruling bloc:

• They absolve the state of responsibility for poor housing, unemployment, and racist schooling.
• They justify intrusive state interventions by social workers, teachers, and health visitors.
• They reinforce the bourgeois nuclear family as the only "natural" and civilized way of life.

4. "Race relations" sociology often serves as an ideological handmaiden to state control.

If at times what we have written seems too firmly in a critical mode, we feel this is a small price to pay while the predicament of the black communities is professionally obscured by those who make a living on the back of black sufferings.

Academic complicity. The academic discipline of "race relations" and "ethnicity studies" has historically functioned as an ideological handmaiden to state control. By focusing on "cultural differences" and "ethnic identity," mainstream sociologists have obscured the material reality of state racism and class exploitation.

Theorizing common sense. Instead of challenging racist assumptions, academic researchers have often formalized them into "scientific" theories of black pathology. They present black cultures as static, backward, or "dislocated," suggesting that the problems black people face are self-inflicted results of their inability to adapt to British life.

Policy-oriented control. This academic industry directly informs state policy by:

• Providing "scientific" legitimacy for compensatory and remedial educational programs.
• Framing racial conflict as "mutual misunderstanding" rather than a struggle over power and resources.
• Advising state agencies on how to manage and contain "alienated" black youth.

5. Schooling as an instrument of containment and social control.

Thus the one way to ensure no changes in the social hierarchy and abundant unskilled labour is to adopt and adapt the educational system to meet the needs of the situation...

Tracking and containment. The British educational system has systematically adapted its practices to contain black students and track them into low-skilled, low-paid labor. Under the guise of social-democratic "equality of opportunity," schools have functioned as sorting mechanisms that reproduce a racially stratified working class.

Compensatory pacification. When assimilationist policies failed in the late 1960s, the state shifted toward "multiculturalism" and "compensatory education." These progressive-sounding curricula were actually designed as tools of social control, attempting to pacify rebellious black students by teaching superficial aspects of their cultures while leaving institutional racism untouched.

Coercive structures. The reality of schooling for black youth in the 1970s was characterized by:

• The disproportionate placement of black children in Educationally Sub-Normal (ESN) schools and "disruptive units."
• The use of language "deficiencies" and "dialect impediments" to label black students as intellectually backward.
• Increased surveillance through the collaboration of teachers, social workers, and police in schools.

6. "Community policing" operates as a sophisticated strategy of counter-insurgency.

The permanent beat officers appointed to Handsworth in the wake of Shades of Grey have had a key role in the development of the West Midlands Police's new command and control computer system.

The velvet glove. "Community policing" is not a democratic reform but a highly sophisticated, proactive strategy of counter-insurgency designed to manage social crisis. By putting the "bobby back on the beat," the state seeks to win the consent of the local population while quietly gathering intelligence on potential troublemakers.

Infiltrating the community. This model of policing shifts the focus of law enforcement from reacting to crimes to monitoring "crime-inducing situations." It integrates the police with other local state apparatuses—such as schools, social services, and housing departments—to create an all-pervasive network of social surveillance.

Tactical flexibility. In practice, community policing operates hand-in-hand with militarized, reactive force:

• It uses "home beat" officers to map the social and political anatomy of black neighborhoods.
• It feeds local intelligence into centralized computer databases to identify "key offenders."
• It maintains a reserve of paramilitary force (like the SPG) to be deployed when "soft" control fails.

7. Black feminism exposes the Eurocentric limits and racism of mainstream sisterhood.

Racism ensures that black men do not have the same relations to patriarchal/capitalist hierarchies as white men.

Triple oppression. Mainstream white feminist theory in Britain is fundamentally Eurocentric, failing to account for the simultaneous and interlocking oppressions of race, class, and gender experienced by black women. By focusing exclusively on patriarchy and the nuclear family, white feminists ignore how these structures are radically altered by racism.

The family as refuge. While white feminists rightly identify the nuclear family as a primary site of women's oppression, for black women, the family has historically functioned as a crucial site of resistance against state racism. The state has systematically attempted to destroy or pathologize the black family, making the defense of the household a political necessity for black women.

Challenging sisterhood. Black feminism challenges the very foundations of mainstream feminist thought by:

• Rejecting the assumption of a universal "sisterhood" that ignores white women's role as racial oppressors.
• Exposing how ideologies of black female sexuality are constructed through the history of slavery and colonial exploitation.
• Fighting against gender-specific racist state practices, such as forced sterilizations and "virginity testing" at ports of entry.

8. Asian women's labor struggles shatter the racist myth of the passive oriental female.

The explanation for the ways in which a particular labour force, i.e. Asian women, were able to be controlled and consequently exploited in particular ways is not to be found in archaic and sexist practices within the Asian cultures, but in the process by which these patriarchal features are transformed by a patriarchal ideology invoking common-sense racist ideas about Asian women.

Exploiting the stereotype. Employers in Britain have systematically recruited Asian women into the lowest-paid, most labor-intensive sectors of the economy, such as sweatshops, laundries, and homeworking. This exploitation is justified by a racist, patriarchal ideology that constructs Asian women as naturally docile, passive, and easily dominated.

Shattering the myth. The historic industrial struggles of the 1970s, most notably the strikes at Grunwick and Chix, demonstrated the powerful determination of Asian women workers to resist exploitation. These battles proved that Asian women are not passive victims, but active political agents capable of organizing militant resistance.

Community-based power. The struggles of Asian women workers have been characterized by:

• Drawing on the collective strength and solidarity of the wider black community.
• Subverting management's racist assumptions by using language (such as speaking in native dialects) as a tool of resistance.
• Challenging both the racism of employers and the Eurocentric, patriarchal structures of British trade unions.

9. Black cultural expressions like Rastafari and Reggae are autonomous forms of class struggle.

The class relations which inscribe the black fractions of the working class function as race relations. The two are inseparable. Race is the modality in which class relations are experienced.

Cultural resistance. For black people in Britain, cultural expressions like reggae music and the Rastafarian movement are not mere forms of leisure or escapism, but active sites of autonomous class struggle. Because black people experience class exploitation through the modality of race, their cultural resistance is fundamentally political.

Subverting the system. Rastafari provides a sophisticated, anti-imperialist critique of "Babylon system" (capitalist society), offering black youth a way to "overstand" and reject the racist categories of their oppression. Through the deconstructive process of Dub music, black culture physically and ideologically dismantles the dominant culture's illusions, creating a shared language of resistance.

Autonomous political force. This cultural politics has allowed the black fraction of the working class to:

• Organize outside the traditional, corporatist structures of the British labor movement.
• Construct a collective, pan-Africanist identity that unites different generations in struggle.
• Challenge the state's monopoly on physical and ideological violence through localized, self-defensive uprisings.

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