eprintid: 10205874 rev_number: 7 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/20/58/74 datestamp: 2025-03-11 11:25:35 lastmod: 2025-03-11 11:25:35 status_changed: 2025-03-11 11:25:35 type: article metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: Nwonka, Clive Chijioke title: The constructions of anti-Black anxiety: Operation Trident's “as if” fictionalisms ispublished: inpress divisions: UCL divisions: B03 divisions: C01 divisions: J42 keywords: Race, visual culture, crime, blackness, police, media note: © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. abstract: The Metropolitan Police’s Operation Trident (1998–2012) was a key example of how Black criminalization was accentuated through the inferential narratives of the media. However, Operation Trident’s independent use of the media would see them exhibit a varied practice of community policing as part of its broader preventative measures that would use a variety of visual mediums in its crossmedia campaign strategy specifically aimed at London’s Black urban communities as an intervention into what was perceived as the natural allure of gun violence within the city’s Black symbolic locations. This article considers the modes through which Operation Trident attempted to structure public opinion. In conducting an underexamined analysis of Operation Trident, I apply the Neo-Kantianism of Vailhinger’s “as if” philosophy to consider the means through which the Metropolitan Police’s antiBlack gun crime initiative instituted anxiety as a Black criminological visual culture, and in doing so, secured its legitimacy. date: 2025-02-25 date_type: published publisher: Informa UK Limited official_url: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2025.2462706 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 2367611 doi: 10.1080/01419870.2025.2462706 lyricists_name: Nwonka, Clive lyricists_id: CJNWO04 actors_name: Nwonka, Clive actors_id: CJNWO04 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Ethnic and Racial Studies pagerange: 1-17 issn: 0141-9870 citation: Nwonka, Clive Chijioke; (2025) The constructions of anti-Black anxiety: Operation Trident's “as if” fictionalisms. Ethnic and Racial Studies pp. 1-17. 10.1080/01419870.2025.2462706 <https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2025.2462706>. (In press). Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10205874/1/The%20constructions%20of%20anti-Black%20anxiety-Operation%20Trident%27s%20as%20if%20fictionalisms.pdf