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A study was conducted to examine the hypothesis that the theoretical problems of the new racism thesis included the account of the discursive change it proposed and the influence of Powellism. The importance of the use of anecdotal stories about the plight of ordinary English people in black communities was highlighted. Results indicate that the rearticulation of racism in post-war politics is consistent with the prohibited concept of old racism.

Philomena Essed and David Theo Goldberg (eds), Race Critical Theories Oxford: Blackwell, 2002, 537 pp. 15.99 [pounds sterling] p.b. (ISBN 0-6312-1438-0) In The New Racism (1981), Martin Barker set forth [...]

Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001, 266 pp., hb 45.00 [pounds sterling] (ISBN 075461526X) This volume appears to offer the prospect of a contemporary reappraisal of Conservative immigration policy, in the light of [...]

Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001, 238 pp., 42.50 [pounds sterling] h.b. (ISBN 0-7546-1425-5) Despite its title, this volume presents 12 studies concerned with responses to, and interpretation and uses of, macro, micro [...]

This article offers a comparative analysis of press mediated morality scares, concerned with the influence of types of heavy metal music on incidences of teen suicide, in two different periods. On the basis of this comparison, I argue that the campaign against heavy metal, in the 1983-87 period in the United States, is an example of a successful moral panic; whereas the attempt to generate a similar scare about the emo sub-genre, in the UK in 2008, is an example of a failed one. So why did one succeed and the other not? Debating Critcher's 'make-over' of the moral panic model and its critics, I suggest the answer lies in a number of factors, some of which support the model, others undermine it. First, while sensationalist press coverage on behalf of 'parents' characterized both panics, in the UK this lacked endorsement by elite/professional bodies, so societal 'solutions' were never clearly posed. Second, the enhanced role of niche/subcultural media in contesting the emo panic. Third, the ability of emo fans to 'speak back' to their demonizers, exemplified by the march on the Daily Mail, which was widely reported. Finally, to the extent that emo is a middle-class defined subculture, with a pronounced female profile, it is not viewed as a threat to societal norms as that of the working-class, male-defined fandom of 1980s heavy metal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the theoretical problem of the new racism thesis, as originally formulated in the 1980s, was the account of the discursive change it proposed and the role and significance of Powellism in this process. In offering a modification of the thesis I highlight the significance of the use of anecdotal accounts of the plight of ordinary English people in areas of black settlement as central to the re-articulation of racialized common sense in Powellism. I go on to argue that the particular discursive form of the racialized anecdote is one that is developed within Parliamentary debates from at least the mid-1950s onwards and that Enoch Powell is not the author but the elite beneficiary of this ideological work. I suggest that this Commons' sense informs and makes possible the success of the campaign for exclusion of black Commonwealth migrants prior to Powellism, and that Powell fashions his own élite/ populist version of such narratives in 1968. Offering an account of racism as a discursive fiction, I argue that the anecdotal form of political racism in post-war Britain is a political and ideological response to the public prohibition on `race' talk in public space. In offering a tentative theory of post-'race' signification which is consistent with empirical evidence, I argue that the `moment' of re-articulation of racism in post-war politics is one consistent with the evacuated space of the prohibited notion of `old' racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]