Mike,
This is really getting nowhere, and I very much doubt if it ever shall.
Perhaps if I explain why feel this point worth pursuing
I have come to believe that there is a strong argument for describing English racism as ‘cultural’, to take a leaf from Keith’s book.
I have spent all but 12 years of my life in three of the major cities of England: in order, Liverpool, Manchester and London. Each of them I found progressively racist, London being by far the worst. When I applied for my first job there (on the telephone), I was asked what colour I was. The racism escalated from there.
At school we sang hymns which declared that to be foreign was to be “in error’s chainâ€쳌; we were given half a day’s holiday (and a paper flag) on Empire Day; we were told, on the wireless, in the newspapers, even by our teachers, how the colonies were “not ready for self-ruleâ€쳌. All this would have been within five years of the Holocaust. Pat has just unearthed her old exercise book from Bluecoat School in Westminster in which she had been told to write during a lesson on logic, “All niggers have kinky hair, therefore all kinky haired people must be niggersâ€쳌.
I served my apprenticeship on the docks and, apart from the sneering and demeaning attitude toward the Lascars and Africans, and all the other ‘foreigners’ I met daily, I saw first-hand the segregated public lavatories; I remember distinctly signs carved over the doors saying “ASIATICSâ€쳌 and “MENâ€쳌.
When I moved to London, I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut when the subject of ‘nig-nogs’ or ‘Pakis’ or ‘wogs’ came up, and, to my shame, I never mentioned my Irish ancestry, especially during the 70s ad 80s. One of my customers proudly showed me his mirror-on-a-stick, with which he examined his car each morning because he “had Irish neighboursâ€쳌 who he’d “never met nor spoken to â€" the wife did once, but I soon put a stop to thatâ€쳌.
I think what offended me most was that whenever the subject of race came up people automatically assumed that I was as racist as they were; there was never any question that I might have thought differently on the subject.
Paki-bashing became a national sport at the time of the expulsion of the Asians from Uganda; it almost (but not quite) overtook queer-bashing. I did electrical work for a couple of Ugandan Asians and found them quiet, gentle and somewhat nervous of the welcome they had received.
I still get angry when I think of the Stephen Lawrence killing; an 18 year old youth stabbed to death by racist thugs â€" because he was black. One of the first acts of the police investigating the killing was to arrest Lawrence’s his companion â€" because he was black. The investigation was bungled and the killers went free â€" because the victim was black (the report on the investigation concluded that throughout, it was influenced by “institutional racismâ€쳌.   
The Singers Club and (some, but by no means all of) the folk clubs we visited, many of them frequented by people with Akenaton’s “indefencible liberal agendaâ€쳌, became small oases in a vast desert of racist shite.
Plenty more examples, personal, as well as reported, which could lead me to claim the existence of ‘a culture of English racism’.
I wonder what would happen if I were to suggest that, despite the tendency of the English to dislocate their shoulders patting themselves on the back and telling each other how fair and tolerant they are, they are not to be trusted when it comes to that subject of race. That’s what is happening here in relation to Pakistani immigrants to Britain.
Jim Carroll