Contemporary European racism stems from emerging cultural change, not just industrial decline.

Evidence

Taken together, these phenomena, be it the transformation of nations, the rise of cultural specificities, or diaspora, outline the considerable changes which, since the end of the 1960s, have shaped the image of the endless process of deconstruction and reconstruction of identities. The development of racism is facilitated by the fact that these phenomena are new and the actors have difficulty in establishing intercultural communication. This brings us to the main characteristic of racism in Europe today. As we have seen, the latter is in many respects the outcome of the ending of the social relations specific to industrial society and the crisis of its institutions and, from this angle, is the outcome of the destructuring of a world we have lost. But racism also develops as a result of cultural changes which are still emerging, since their first expressions of note date from the end of the 1960s; it is an inherent part of processes which will become increasingly important; it is one of the protagonists in tomorrow’s world and not uniquely a senile figure from the past. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3178

Categorization

• QUESTION: The claim that racism’s novelty (‘actors have difficulty in establishing intercultural communication’) is itself a driver is worth interrogating — is unfamiliarity really the mechanism?
• XREF: Chimes with the Bias of Communication material about new media/identities outpacing institutions’ capacities.