The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) have revealed in a report that an average of five race murders occur in the UK every year since the race murder of Stephen Lawrence in April 1993 by a gang of racists.

The IRR was formed as an independent charity in 1958 to carry out research on race relations throughout the world and the latest research reveals a disturbing trend of racial killings in the UK since the death of Stephen Lawrence in 1993.

According to the report an average of five people are being killed as a result of racist attacks in this country and the majority of victims are Asians and black people.  This research contradicts previous reports which suggested that whites suffered more racial attacks than black people or Asians.

On Monday, 8 February 1999, The Independent online headline read, “Most race attack victims `are white‘”, in which a Commission for Racial Equality report stated that “…238,000 white people told researchers they had been victims of a racial offence in a 12-month period, compared to 101,000 Asians and 42,000 blacks.”

Race experts mentioned in the report that the figures did not take into consideration the fact that many whites who claimed to be robbed by black people logged it as a racial crime and it also ignored the fact that disputes between the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish which has grown significantly in the last few years were logged as race crimes. Therefore an Irish person could attack an English person and it would be logged as a race crime arguably giving the impression that they have been attacked by an Asian or black person.

A BBC report on Wednesday, 8 November 2006, was titled “Racism and race crime redefined”, in this report it was argued that the murder of a young white male by Asians has forced society to rethink the definition of racism which historically excluded whites as victims.

What these reports often leave out is the fact that retaliation from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities towards whites is usually due to decades of racist intimidation and attacks which these communities have suffered at the hands of racist whites.

It is interesting in The Independent report that eight young Asian men said that they would retaliate with physical force if they were provoked. Is this racism? The same young men said that they had attacked white boys before and would do so again and even said that they hated whites who were racist towards them. Is this racism?

It seems that the mainstream media has a difficulty in accepting that racism has had a profound impact on black and minority ethnic communities in the UK, and the young generation who are born in this country do not seem to be prepared to turn their left cheek or love their enemy as their parents did to keep the peace. Call it prejudice or hatred but to call it racism ignores the history to why young Asians, blacks and other minorities feel animosity towards some whites in this country.

The IRR report said that eighty-nine people have been killed as a result of racist attacks in the UK since 1993, and out of those 89 victims, 83 were from black and minority ethnic communities, 46 percent of all victims were Asian and 26 percent were black. Muslims in general represented 44 percent of all the victims who died.

According to the IRR 94 percent of these race murders were perpetrated by whites; more disturbingly a spokesperson for the IRR said:

Seventeen years ago, the country was transfixed by the information that emerged, because of the sustained campaign by the Lawrence family, about the random nature of the attack and the way the police failed to find the killers. The Macpherson report into the death, with its finding of institutional racism in the police force and seventy recommendations as to how to deal with the problem and with that of racial violence, was supposed to ensure that such murders never happened again. But they have happened again and again and again. The sad thing is that such deaths hardly make news. The names of the victims will barely be known to anyone but their immediate families. For politicians, the issue of racial violence is dead and buried.”

The question that we must ask is why these murders have not been reported in the media? While the media have focused on white victims the IRR research shows that they have clearly been biased towards black and Asian victims of race murders.

This report will hopefully provoke serious debate about how the term racism has been deliberately misused by the media to arguably disguise the ugly underbelly of racist violence against black and minority ethnic (BME) communities perpetrated by whites.

Just as women are still perceived as the main victims of domestic violence BME communities are the main victims of racism and racist violence and the IRR research has proven this.

For further research:

http://www.irr.org.uk/2010/april/bw000018.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/most-race-attack-victims-are-white-1069502.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6128466.stm

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3 thought on “Five racial murders per year says race institute”
  1. Hi Renesmee,

    That is a very interesting and provocative question. Perhaps the Institute of Race Relations website can shed more light on this question for you: http://www.irr.org.uk/index.html.

    Hopefully, other readers will add useful information and debate to help address your question.

  2. Although I agree that Stephen’s murder was a terrible waste of a good and talented young mans life, I don’t believe it was just racially motivated.

    There has always been a gang culture in young men even with mods and rockers. However there is a lot made about skinheads being racist but young men of every ethnic background could be part of this “gang” culture.

    Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not some white supremacist trying to start trouble, but I do wish that all people whatever race or creed were taken for who they are and what they believe our society should be about. I have a son who is as old as Stephen was when he lost his life, and I don’t wish for him to grow up in a country where people harbour hatred based just on the colour of your skin.

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