White Supremacy In 1960s Britain

The Idea of White Supremacy in 1960s Britain: Different Perspectives Buchi Emecheta’s novel Second Class Citizen is heavily based on Buchi’s personal experiences being an immigrant in 1960s Britain. In the book she refers to herself as Adah, a woman who had to deal with racism and sexism throughout her youth. The racism she experienced in specific was that of the white majority against the incoming immigrants of Britain. People of the recently decolonized were coming to Britain to study, the Indians, Pakistanis and Africans, were all considered black. The white majority, like they tend to, did not appreciate the sudden influx of immigrants. This is the main concern of Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech. He believes that by 1985, the number of immigrants and their descendants will be

Or, as Powell puts more curtly, “In this country in 15 or 20 years’ time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.” It seems like, if anything, the white British majority are afraid of their livelihood being threatened. Why do they feel like if they become the minority that they will become the second-class? (Did they not know the situation in South Africa, where the white minority still ruled?) Powell continues in his speech to say that all that come to Britain are given full citizenship and that there is no ‘first-class’ or ‘second-class’, but also that this doesn’t mean a “citizen should be denied his right to discriminate.” He even has the audacity to imply that the British natives are being prejudiced against in favor of the immigrants. This, of course, is not true. Regardless, Powell continues with a story about a woman who is afraid of the immigrants and refuses to let them use her phone or rent rooms in her building even when she is in the need of money. I think