Seeing red over black and white: popular and media representations of inter-racial relationships as precursors to racial violence

The recent murder in the UK of Anthony Walker attests to the lingering antipathy, indeed hostility, toward intimate inter-racial relationships, especially those involving black men and white women. Seventeen year-old Walker was brutally beaten then fatally assaulted with an axe to his head - the 'provocation' for the attack was this young black man’s relationship with his white girl friend. This paper assesses the historical and contemporary images and mythologies that continue to stigmatize inter-racial relationships. Specifically, we look at the representations disseminated through varied popular media forms. The paper suggests that these mediated constructs condition an environment that facilitates, if not encourages, violence against those in inter-racial relationships