Race, Class and Belonging

Abstract

This chapter poses a challenge to criminological thought that positions Blackness as incidental to class in the mapping of populations as ‘police property’ (Lee in Organisational Police Deviance. Butterworth, Toronto, 1981). Through an analysis of experiences of over-policing in ‘Black areas’, it proposes that race and class coalesce to create racially othered spaces, thus justifying an oppressive police presence. Drawing on the experiences of Black professionals it will illuminate the ways in which race disrupts capital acquired through professionalism. This point underlines the significance of race in participants’ encounters with the police. It shows that race is drawn upon as a ‘symbol of inferiorisation’ (Anthias in Racialised Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender, Colour and Class and the Anti-Racist Struggle. Routledge, London, 1999). Regardless of individual social identity, or context, the ‘fact of Blackness’ (Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks. Pluto Press, London, 1986) constructs those who embody it as suspect. Finally, the chapter analyses the importance of belonging for how migrants understand their encounters with the police in England. It will conclude that race and class are intersecting oppressions. However, in the context of police contact, race is the predominant trigger for imagining the suspect.