The paper seeks to demonstrate that the notion of race can be fully understood only when it is examined in the particular context in which it is produced. Academics' reactions to specific "race riots" and associated criminality have concentrated on the ideological construction of "black youth" as signifier of sociopolitical crisis. Thus the construction of race may be deployed in a particular way relating to particular events. But such a deployment only makes sense with reference to previous constructions, each of which can be regarded both as isolated and discrete and as part of a process of racialization. The paper examines the construction of race in relation to four incidents of public disorder: the 1919 disorders in Liverpool, the 1936 "Battle of Cable Street," the disorders in Nottingham and Notting Hill in 1958, and the Broadwater Farm disorders of 1985. Table, bibliography