organization, Golden Dawn, suggest that we do not have to dig deep to uncover the racist undercurrents in the Greek police force. Detention officers do not engage with racist discourse unapologetically. ‘I am not racist, ok? I am not racist. And I believe that nobody is.’ (Interview, Petrou Ralli detention centre, 2011), a detention officer anxiously tried to justify his comments about Nigerians being extremely violent. But as he went further on to explain ‘it’s logical and consequential to have some feelings of racism when Greece is full of immigrants.’ (Interview, Petrou Ralli detention centre, 2011). The denial of racism, that which Lentin (2018) refers to as ‘not racism’, bears the anxiety to situate itself against two categories of people; the anti-racists, who preach a hegemonic moral orthodoxy that strangles freedom of expression, and the pure racists. In contrast, the ‘commonsensical non-racist’ majority presents the ‘invasion’ of migrants and the consequent fear of contaminating the purity of Greek race as the alibi and legitimation for the free expression of racist ideas. A police officer, who had served at the border, relayed the following incident, somewhat proudly, and in awe of the resilience of immigrants to state violence: ‘There are races that don’t understand the meaning of human rights... I can tell you about specific people that if you don’t hit them, they won’t respect you. Algerians? Georgians? Even if you beat them up, they won’t understand. They are very hard people. I was very impressed. A Georgian guy attacked a colleague of mine. We applied the necessary violence (my emphasis) and then tied him up. The guy was bleeding. Afterwards we were mopping the blood from the floor. I strained my ankle and my friend his wrist and the Georgian guy was still provoking us. That says everything. They are very hard people. I’ve never seen anything like that. Algerians will get their slaps and stay quiet but Georgians no. I don’t know maybe they’ve been through a lot. I think Algerians are softer. But they are scum too. They can tough out some beating.’ (Interview, Petrou Ralli detention centre, 2011). According to these border guards, concerns about Greek border security together with the demonic qualities of those who seek to enter justify the violation of their human rights. Racism in the Hellenic Police is neither new, nor a symptom of the large numbers of immigrants arriving over the past 30 years. As Christopoulos (2014) claims, ‘the intrusion 132