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The central theme of this large book is that racial groups other than one's own become repositories for projections of an individual's own unresolved identity conflicts, and that this process may lead to the formation of either a benign or a vicious spiral of reciprocity and interaction between members of different races in a multi-racial society such as in Britain. The individual may project good or bad bits of himself—or his idealised self. Such a projection can be a fruitful process, if it proves to be only an emergency device to distance an ill-defined something from oneself (by putting it in the group out there with physical differences such as colour which have symbolic connotations), thus giving it definition and then reintegrating it into one's own self, without necessarily becoming aware of the process involved.
If the individual rigidly identifies himself with the racial projection, aided by stereotypes of thought or images and other activators such as reinforcing political speeches, then the target racial group reacts in defence, and a descending vicious spiral of worsening mutual prejudices sets in. This is misuse of racial groups. But if, on the other hand, suitable constraints are brought to bear upon the projections, thereby avoiding their being acted out, then the spiral can be avoided; in some cases, positive use of some of the projections can be made by the individual assuming responsibility for himself and transforming the experience into a stimulus for his own further development and better race relationships. Thus an ascending benign spiral may be set in motion. For example, one may emulate the achievements in education, work and the constructive use of aggression associated with members of the other races, as the West Indian, Adrian James, does in the interviews in this book, rather than hate the other races for these very things, as the English boy, John Chattaway does. By and large, the vicious spiral is associated with unresolved elements of