The Issues of Race

In the introduction of the essay, Joan Riley writes about the issues of race. The question of race is dealt with not with a biological and innocuous meaning, but as an emotive and infinitely manipulable form.

Manipulation of public opinion, however politically or socially shaded depersonalises black peoples and creates acceptance of a set of truths which has nothing to do with race.

No matter where they went in the world, whether it was Europe or Britain or America, immigrants faced the same problem of racism. The prejudices that result from racism are sometimes so much integrated into cultural and social norms that even the black peoples or other immigrants had no other option but to accept this truth for what it is and do not question it.

when black and Asian peoples started arriving in any numbers, they were already marked not only by skin colour, but with the stigma of slavery, indentureship and subordinate colonial status

So the basic idea was that, if u were a black or Asian immigrant ur scarlet letter was mugging, assuming the role of scapegoat, contributing to urban decay, slavery, subordinate colonial status. This created the so-called myth of inferiority and situated blacks and Asians on the lower part of the social scale. They were treated with inferiority and were expected to do all the jobs that the whites couldn't be bother to do.