Am I a racist? I jolly well shouldn't be. Look at my life. House in some Islington media gulch. Kiddies romping around in the minimalist basement. A couple of snowball-head Aryans and then one with fairly olive skin and one in between. They are the produce, within the space of four generations, of India, Turkey, France, Germany, Russia, international Jewry, Wales and England.

In fact, I like to think my instincts, in this respect, are as blameless as those of the average Guardian reader; and the thing is, I am guilty none the less. Not of racism, I hope, but of spasms of incorrectitude, soon over, soon regretted. When I shamble round the park in my running gear late at night, and I come across that bunch of black kids, shrieking in the spooky corner by the disused gents, I would love to pretend that I don't turn a hair.

Now you might tell me not to be such a wuss. You might say that I am at no more risk than if I had come across a bunch of winos. But somehow or other a little beeper goes off in my brain. I'm not sure what triggers it (the sayings of Sir Paul Condon? The Evening Standard?), but I put on a pathetic turn of speed. You might tell me that when they shout their cheery catcalls, I should smile and wave. And, you know, maybe a big girl's blouse like me would break into an equally rapid lollop if it were a gang of white kids.

Quite possibly. The trouble is, I'm not sure. I cannot rule out that I have suffered from a tiny fit of prejudice. I have prejudged this group on the basis of press reports, possibly in right-wing newspapers, about the greater likelihood of being mugged by young black males than by any other group. And if that is racial prejudice, then I am guilty.

And so are you, baby. So are we all. If there is anyone reading this who has never experienced the same disgraceful reflex, then - well, I just don't believe you. It is common ground among both right-wingers and left-wingers that racism is "natural", in that it seems to arise organically, in all civilisations. It is as natural as sewage. We all agree that it is disgusting, a byproduct of humanity's imperfect evolution. The question is, what to do with the effluent? It seems to me that today's solutions are almost as wrong as those of Enoch Powell 30 years ago.

One of the features of conservative cant is the assertion that "Enoch did not have a racist bone in his body". Oh no, say my friends the Powellites. He was simply pointing out that other people - the benighted folk of Wolverhampton - could not be expected to show the same restraint. It is all very well for the Hampstead liberals to be tolerant; but what of the urban poor, those at the sharp end? Powell himself was not a racist, say the Powellites, but he spoke for those whose baser feelings were too sorely taxed by their neighbours. He was not a racist; he was merely the prophet of racism. Well, even if you accept the distinction, you have to admit that, as a prophet, Powell got it crashingly wrong.

Where is the foaming river of blood? Call me a media milquetoast, but I don't see a race war; I see innumerable examples of colour-blind cooperation. On questions of race, the man to listen to is not Enoch Powell, but WF Deedes, who served in the same Tory cabinet, and who thinks our record in this country is as good as anywhere in the world. Powell got it wrong, by underestimating the tolerance of the British, and by conjuring up a racist genie that proved not nearly as vile as imagined. And the same mistake, of course, is being made by the race relations industry today.

Heaven knows why Macpherson made his weird recommendation, that the law might be changed so as to allow prosecution for racist language or behaviour "other than in a public place". I can't understand how this sober old buzzard was prevailed upon to say that a racist incident might be so defined in the view of the victim "or any other person". This is Orwellian stuff.

Not even under the law of Ceausescu's Romania, could you be prosecuted for what you said in your own kitchen. No wonder the police are already whingeing that they cannot make any arrests in London. No wonder the CPS groans with anti-discrimination units, while making a balls-up of so many cases.

Suppose a racist phrase or incident were really defined entirely according to the perception of some third party. Here's the Guardian's own Gary Younge, on the subject of Ali G. "Imagine the tables were turned, and a black comedian created a white Jewish character, who made jokes about being a tight-fisted, highly ambitious mummy's boy."

Of course Mr Younge was using this ugly stereotype to show that some people could take offence at the comic's portrayal of black men as "stupid, sexist, drug-taking layabouts", but isn't it possible that someone might have taken offence at Gary's own words?

If the Macpherson report had been implemented in full, you might not get away with that, Gary. And that would be crazy, wouldn't it? Where the left, the Guardian, Macpherson and the whole PC brigade are just as wrong as Powell, is in thinking that we should endlessly hunt for evidence of one of humanity's worst features, tease it out, legislate for it, bang on about it, create thousands of jobs financially dependent on discovering it.

In reality, provided we have a reasonable legal framework for minimising the problem - like the infrastructure used to remove sewage - we could probably achieve the same results, if not better. If we axed large chunks of the anti-racism industry, stopped taxing so many people with the threat of legal action, and left a bit more of the struggle against racism to tolerance and good manners.