Racism is not an externality to British policing but is integral to its history, says sociologist and ex-youth worker, Adam Elliott-Cooper. He tells Samira Shackle about the ideas behind his book ‘Black Resistance to British Policing’. Recognising racism as far more than just interpersonal or about prejudice alone, he connects it to colonialism and the state, and highlights the role of resistance - including by women of colour who have long championed justice and radical change.

Plus: why the tendency in the UK to see racism as "something that happens somewhere else"? What’s obscured when we talk about “knife crime”? And why must we insist on continuing to talk about whiteness?

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Hosts: Samira Shackle and Alice Bloch
Executive producer: Alice Bloch
Sound engineer: David Crackles
Music: Danosongs

Reading list:

‘Black Resistance to British Policing’ (2021) Adam Elliott-Cooper 

W.E.B Du Bois (1868-1963) collected works

‘Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order’ (1978) Stuart Hall et al.

‘Folk Devils and Moral Panics’, (1972) Stanley Cohen 

‘There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack’ (1987) Paul Gilroy

‘Women, Race and Class’ (1981) Angela Davis 

Frantz Fanon (1925-1962) collected works 

‘And Still I Rise’ (2006) Doreen Lawrence

 ‘Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays’ (1950) George Orwell 

‘Leviathan’ (1651) Thomas Hobbes 

‘On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life’ (2012) Sara Ahmed

‘Assembly’ (2021) Natasha Brown

‘In Search of Whiteness’ (2017), Lola Okolosie for New Humanist magazine, with Vron Ware