WHILE most right-thinking people in East Lancashire are not racist, a small minority are -- sufficient for the far-right British National Party to have targeted the region in a bid to spread its support.

But while this situation may have developed in the wake of the riots that rocked Burnley last year and its effects concentrated most where numbers of ethnic minorities are highest, the issue is one that concerns the whole community -- above all, for its peace and well-being.

How right, then, was the Bishop of Blackburn, the Right Rev. Alan Chesters, to call at the weekend for Christians across Lancashire to 'root out racism' and work against its noxious influence, even though they may live in areas which do not have large ethnic populations.

For though, when he addressed the diocesan synod at St Peter's Church, in Burnley, Bishop Chesters was outrightly condemning overt racism when he said there was no room for it in the Church or our society, he was also bringing attention to another form of the poison -- the unwitting sort.

He called for a commitment to root out the racist attitudes that are perhaps held unconsciously in parishes with low ethnic numbers. He is right to do so -- especially when the lessened impact in such places of the multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-faith society that is evident elsewhere can lead to shallow experience and understanding of the different groups in the community as a whole.

Was it not the limited contact between Burnley's diverse groups that was cited as a key factor for the mistrust and ignorance that kindled the disturbances in the town? And is it not vital for that divide to be dismantled, not just where the ethnic minorities are greatest, but across the whole community?

And Bishop Chesters is right when he says that this requires not just slogans or pious platitudes of good intent, but practical efforts as the fears generated by differences emerge.