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try this

for society emergent racism would be a wake-up call

This is a topic I am very familiar with and am positive given the definition in the translation:

"...ovvero uno stato di inquietudine o preoccupazione innescato nella società da un comportamento negativo attuato da una parte della società stessa"

compared to the definition in English:

"A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order."
[see Web reference 1 for details ]

that the original text is describing moral panic.

It is also sometimes called 'social panic' - but that gets confused with an individual phobia condition.

I have clients with PhD's on this topic and have researched the media's role in social panic as well.



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Note added at 51 mins (2010-08-20 15:38:30 GMT)
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Correction

"I have clients with PhD's on this topic and have researched the media's role in social panic as well."

should read

"I have clients with PhD's on this topic and have researched the media's role in moral panic as well."


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Note added at 3 hrs (2010-08-20 18:44:27 GMT)
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'Moral panic' is a relative new neologism (since 1972) used in sociological research. It has a lot of contemporary use in Italy when discussing issues of rascism and immigration; and sensationalism in the media regarding drugs and sex - and in some of the PhD theses I've worked on, they also use 'moral panic' in English as a jargon word.

The original question describes exactly some of the issues treated by this condition:

"...questo concetto "allarme sociale", ovvero uno stato di inquietudine o preoccupazione innescato nella società da un comportamento negativo attuato da una parte della società stessa. Ad esempio se molta gente iniziasse ad essere razzista, ci sarebbe un allarme sociale per il razzismo, oppure per gli stupri, per la droga... etc."

Other examples explaining this new term online:

1. "Common characteristics of a moral panic: a high level of concern over the behaviour of a certain group or category of people, an increased level of hostility towards the group regarded as a threat, and disproportionality or an exaggeration of the threat."
[source http://www.atypon-link.com/AAP/doi/pdf/10.1375/acri.37.3.344... ]

2. "This moral panic has reinforced negative stereotypes about minority communities, is reinvigorating racism and prejudice and, as a consequence, is threatening the social cohesion in one of the world’s most successful multicultural societies."
[source http://www.omi.wa.gov.au/publications/seminar/Ethnic_Minorit... ]

If you take the time to read the Wikiepedia entry - you might understand it better. I cannot communicate years of research on this subject here.

another option

per darti una versione in più

Al mio orecchio sinistro (anglofono; il destro è russofono), "social alarm", suona, e anche si presenta sulla carta (al mio occhio sinistro!), un po' goffo. Eppoi sa di calca – da mori'. D'altronde, "social issue" può dire qualsiasi cosa. Ecco perché ho proposto il mio: standard nella sociologia. Ciao.

or possibly civil unrest, which sounds a bit more serious, implying that police/troops etc., will be prepared to move in to keep control