Racial Discrimination in U.k. in THE 1940s

Racial discrimination is synonymous with racism. Europe’s history of racism is broad enough for someone to trace back its origin (Welsh 2003). This paper aims to trace back the history of social background and circumstances of 1940s specifically in the United Kingdom.

Generally, discrimination is the act of making a difference, as in favor of or against a person or thing. It is often used to refer to the act of treating individuals differently on the basis of gender, age, race, religion, or other characteristics. It is a form of behavior that shows prejudice, but not only the form. It is the failure to treat people in the same way because of a bias toward some of them because of some characteristic – such as race, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, disability – which is irrelevant to their suitability for something (The Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science). At this instance, discrimination is based on race and social classes and status. While some texts describe how racism has been mainly evident in the past, daily occurrences of racism have also been observed (Castles & Vasta, 1996, p. 285).

Hollingsworth (1998, p. 224) has discussed that institutional racism is made up of more complex processes that is likely to benefit one ethnic group and disadvantage the rest. Additionally,  Ryan (1999, p. 185) stated that the people are the ones that create various signs or symbols that make one ethnic group distinct form another; it is a process of categorizing social groups based on their superiority or inferiority. Though racism originates from history and tradition, it is the people that worsen the problem (Castles & Vasta, p. 31).

As early as the first years of the 20th century, Victorian attitudes and ideals continuously proliferate in Britain (Welsh 2003). Conscription led people to be divided into several classes that resulted to building of empires. It is only after the start of the World War I that the sociological setting changed. Social reforms were continued by the Labour Party but failed until the 1922 general election (Stoler 1997; Welsh 2003). Fast tracking the series of events, there are enormous changes that took place not only to the state itself but to the neighboring nations and the whole world as well.

The election of Clement Attlee as the prime minister in 1945 brings back the power of the Labour party. Thus, they bring back the same tactics and principles in governance. There are several accounts of controversial policies and laws of the land. Among these are the creation of modern Welfare state and the nationalism of utilities and the long-distance transportation (Stoler 1997).