Title: We ask for British justice
First published: 1994
Description: Laura Tabili is the first historian to examine the concrete connections between the legacy of imperialism and the problem of racial antagonism inside Britain. Previous efforts to explain ethnic conflict have often resorted to pessimistic "commonsense" assumptions about the universality of xenophobia and racism; here Tabili recovers the historical conditions under which racial inequality was institutionalized in Britain.

Tabili tells in unprecedented detail the story of racial subordination and Black resistance in the first half of this century. Drawing on rich archival evidence, she traces the sources of racial conflict to the structure of the labor market in merchant shipping, a global industry that relied on cheap labor from the colonies. As she reconstructs the social meaning of race in the late empire, she describes how unions, workers, and British and colonial governments all struggled to define who was Black and what this meant in relation to the prerogatives of British identity.

Notorious episodes of racial confrontation, Tabili demonstrates, were shaped more by the decisions of influential institutional actors than by the racist impulses of ordinary people. In documenting the power of institutions to assign meaning to racial difference, "We Ask for British Justice" has important implications for ethnic relations in other postcolonial societies.
Subjects: Black Sailors, Blacks, Employment, History, Minorities, Race relations, Sailors, Black, Social conditions, Blacks, employment, Blacks, great britain, Great britain, race relations, Minorities, great britain, Minorities, employment, Blacks--employment--history, Blacks--employment--great britain--history--20th century, Minorities--employment--history, Minorities--employment--great britain--history--20th century, Sailors, black--social conditions, Sailors, black--great britain--social conditions, Blacks--social conditions, Blacks--great britain--social conditions, Minorities--social conditions, Minorities--great britain--social conditions, Race relations--history, Hd8398.b55 t33 1994, 331.6/396041, Black people
Places: Great Britain
Time periods: 20th century
LC classification: HD8398.B55 T33 1994