The term has racist overtones. This has derogatory overtones and implies an ignorance of the complex nature of many non-industrial societies. In a biological sense the word is unhelpful since it does not describe the variety of ethnic groups which sociologists would normally wish to identify. Some have felt that it is necessary to put the word into inverted commas in order to make it clear that these are social distinctions being referred to rather than biological ones and in order to distance themselves from the original meaning of the term. The lack of scientific evidence for a racial typology led to such theories being discredited.
Racism is created and reproduced out of a complex set of circumstances.
In the discourse of the new racism customary practices including speech, domestic life and worship are taken to be signs of coextensive difference. This can be seen in the way that ethnicity is treated as fixed and mutually exclusive. Such common-sense understandings have a tendency to prevent people from recognising cultural similarities. The new racism implies that there is a unified white nation state who participate in a shared British culture, history and identity and who have a common sense of belonging. Those who believe in the new racism argue that there is need to protect the British nation and the national culture from those who are presumed to pose a threat to its existence.