But the racists in Brick Lane were bashing my body only to build up my resistance. Each encounter made me more determined to fight back. The bomb in Brick Lane, and the earlier one in Brixton, will have exactly the same effect on the Asian and black communities. It will strengthen their resolve to fight the evil of racism with all their strength. As most of us know from personal experience, racism in Britain tends to be sly and covered with the veneer of respectability.
Insidious racism is more common than physical violence, and much more violating.
It's in the way they look at you at passport control and examine and re-examine your little red European Union passport. It's in the withering politeness that you meet in official and bureaucratic gatherings, a politeness that declares you have some untold social disease. The insidious forms of racism lead a respectable life. They dwell in academia, the media, the professions. They decorate art and culture and would never dream of beating anyone up on a street corner.