Start here if you're sceptical
You are not a bad person for asking questions. Most people pick up ideas about other groups from family, friends, headlines and social media, without ever checking them. This page asks you to check. Nobody here will shout at you.
Honest questions, straight answers
Is it racist to want fewer migrants?
No. Arguing about how many people should come, and how, is normal politics. It becomes racism when you judge a person by their race or origin, or blame a whole group for what one person did.
Aren't some groups just worse?
People differ as individuals, not by skin colour or country. Where group statistics differ, they follow things like poverty, age and where police look. See the myths below.
Isn't "racist" just a word used to shut people up?
Sometimes it gets thrown around unfairly, and that does not help anyone. This site sticks to what can be shown with evidence, and it links every source so you can test it.
What if I have already said or shared something racist?
Most people have, at some point. What matters is what you do next. Check the claim, stop sharing it, and say so if you were wrong. That takes more strength than doubling down.
Why racism is wrong
1. Race is not a biological division
Any two humans share about 99.9% of their DNA. Most genetic variation sits inside any so-called racial group, not between groups. Skin colour is a tiny slice of the genome, shaped largely by sunlight exposure over many generations.
2. It hurts real people
Research links experiences of racial discrimination to worse mental and physical health, lower pay and fewer opportunities. It also costs everyone else: talent gets wasted and communities get split.
3. Judging a person by a group is bad logic
Even if a statistic about a group were true, it tells you nothing certain about the person in front of you. Treating people as individuals is both fairer and more accurate.
4. History already ran this experiment
Slavery, apartheid, Jim Crow and the Holocaust all started with the idea that some people are lesser. Each one is now widely recognised as a moral catastrophe.
Migrant boats: what is true and what is blown up
The Channel crossings are real, and people have good reasons to want a fair, well run system. This is not a claim that nothing is happening. It is a look at what the official numbers say, next to what the headlines suggest.
The latest numbers are falling
About 33,000 people arrived by small boat in the year to June 2026, down roughly a fifth from the year before and well below the 2022 peak of about 45,700. "It is getting worse every day" is not what the latest data shows.
Boats are not the whole asylum picture
In the year to June 2026, about 40% of people claiming asylum had arrived by small boat. Around 41% had come in legally on a visa or other permission first.
Most claim asylum, and many are recognised
About 95% of small boat arrivals claim asylum. Of those who have had a decision (2018 to 2025), roughly 6 in 10 were granted refugee status or other protection after being checked.
The backlog is shrinking
At the end of June 2026 about 40,000 people were waiting for an initial decision. That is 56% fewer than a year earlier and the lowest since 2019. Slow decisions, not the migrants themselves, drive many of the costs people are angry about.
Where the fear comes from
Words like "invasion" and "swarm" turn people in danger into a threat. A single crime gets repeated for weeks, while the numbers go unreported. And false stories spread fast: after Southport in 2024, a made up name and religion for the attacker led to riots. The fix is simple. Ask "what are the actual numbers, and who says so?"
Wanting an orderly, fair asylum system is a reasonable position. Fearing every person who crosses, or everyone who looks like them, is where it becomes racism.
UK racism: the facts and what helps
Britain has made real progress, and the evidence shows the problem is still here. Honest note: no website can cure racism on its own. Change comes from people, workplaces and laws moving together. This is your first move.
Race is the biggest motive
Race is the most common motivation in recorded hate crime in England and Wales, around 7 in 10 offences.
Same CV, different outcome
A UK field study sent thousands of matched job applications. Minority applicants needed about 60% more applications to get the same positive response as white British applicants.
Childbirth
Black women in the UK are around three to four times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than white women.
The Casey Review
In 2023 the Casey Review found the Metropolitan Police to be institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic. Government data also shows Black people are stopped and searched at several times the rate of white people.
Southport
After the Southport attack, false claims spread online within hours saying the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker who had just arrived by boat. He was born in Cardiff. Violent disorder followed, including attacks on mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers.
Discrimination is expensive
The McGregor-Smith Review (2017) estimated that fully using minority talent at work could add about 24 billion pounds a year to the UK economy.
What would actually help
- Check before you share. Look for the original source of any claim about a group.
- Challenge it calmly. Ask "how do you know that?" and listen.
- Back victims. Report hate crime: 999 in an emergency, 101 otherwise, or online at report-it.org.uk.
- Name-blind shortlisting, structured interviews and published pay gap data.
- Clear, safe reporting routes, and action when people use them.
- Teach the full history, including empire and Windrush.
- Support groups doing this work: Show Racism the Red Card, Runnymede Trust, Tell MAMA, Community Security Trust, Stop Hate UK.
- Mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting for large employers.
- Full delivery of Windrush compensation and the Windrush review recommendations.
- Faster action on online hate and viral disinformation.
Facing discrimination? The Equality Act 2010 protects people from race discrimination. The Equality Advisory and Support Service and Acas can advise.
Real cases
The Tuskegee syphilis study
US government researchers watched hundreds of Black men with syphilis go untreated for decades, even after penicillin became standard treatment, without telling them. The study ended in 1972 after a whistleblower went public.
Emmett Till
A 14 year old Black boy was abducted and murdered in Mississippi. His mother insisted on an open casket so the world could see what was done. The men accused were acquitted by an all white jury.
Stephen Lawrence
Stephen, 18, was murdered in a racist attack in London. The Macpherson Report (1999) found the Metropolitan Police investigation was marred by professional incompetence and institutional racism.
The CV experiment
Researchers sent identical CVs to employers, changing only the name. CVs with white sounding names got about 50% more callbacks than those with Black sounding names.
The Windrush scandal
People who came to Britain from the Caribbean as British subjects, many as children, were wrongly treated as illegal immigrants. Some lost jobs, healthcare and homes, and some were deported. A government review said it was foreseeable and avoidable.
Redlining
Federal housing maps marked many Black neighbourhoods as high risk, which cut off mortgages and investment. Researchers have linked those old maps to present day gaps in wealth, health and heat exposure.
Common myths and the facts
Tap a myth to see the answer.
Pop culture: who is the joke on?
Comedy about race can expose prejudice or spread it. Characters like Ali G, created by Sacha Baron Cohen, were built as satire: the joke is meant to land on the people who take the act seriously. Critics have long argued that the line is thin, because some viewers laugh at the stereotype itself and miss the point.
A quick test for any film, show or meme
- Who is the joke on: the bigot or the group they target?
- Would someone who holds racist views feel challenged, or confirmed?
- Does it need the stereotype to be funny?
Pick any recent film, show or meme, including satire in the style of Ali G, and run it through the test. Then argue your case with sources, not slogans. If a joke only works because a stereotype is true in your head, that is worth noticing.
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Weekly newsletter
One short email a week on a single idea: why racism is wrong, a real case, or a myth taken apart.
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"I'm not racist, but..."
This week: why that phrase usually signals the opposite. We look at the CV experiment, what it found, and one question to ask yourself the next time you hear a stereotype.
Try this: next time you hear a claim about a whole group, ask "how would I check that?" and look for the original study.