Chapter 24 Wales Race Riots and the institutionalisation of racism

Description

It was argued in the 1970s that Racism had been institutionalised because of the introduction of the Immigration Act in 1971. The argument presented here is that in reality this had already happened in 1919. The way that the 1919 race riots was dealt with by government, the trade unions and the media providing a blueprint for generations to follow.
The events of 1971 were actually in response to the Windrush generation, which of course includes Ugandan Asians.
In a way that is the problem, so much of history about black and minority people has been written about the post 1950 generation of arrivals, but the experience of those in Wales who were third generation by then is a forgotten history.
In every sense Wales (like Liverpool) has a different history and that history is an invisible one that needs telling more than ever. Our road to citizenship is a lesson to be learnt from, not ignored. The 1919 events are also to be learnt from because so much pracitsed then by the state and the media is now normal behaviour.