What is racism anyway?
In association with:
Historically, racial thinking treated people as inferior on the basis of skin colour and ancestry. It was not a metaphor. It was a system of ranking human beings as more or less fully human, and it had a material reality: slavery, colonial subjugation, segregation and eugenics. It was codified in law, housing and labour markets. Its defining feature was treating people according to group membership rather than individual merit.
Today, the term is used far more broadly, even as legal discrimination is at an all-time low and cross-ethnic socialisation and marriage are routine. While politicians and commentators claim racism is rising, reports alleging workplace discrimination often rely on flawed methodologies. Online slurs persist, but everyday life reflects widespread multi-ethnic integration.
The word ‘racism’ is losing its precise sociological meaning. It no longer requires intentional hostility or actionable discrimination. Instead, racism is frequently inferred from statistical disparities, non-conforming attitudes, or a failure to endorse preferred identities. It functions as a cultural weapon to signal moral superiority and police speech. Legitimate debate – such as questioning academic integrity, mass immigration, demographic shifts or DEI programmes – is routinely dismissed with accusations of racism.
Modern anti-racism has transformed into an industry. A professional class of consultants and administrators sells ‘unconscious bias’ training and manages institutional compliance to protect organisations from regulatory overreach. Unlike historical civil-rights movements that sought equal participation in a shared society, contemporary identity politics often elevates certain groups while denigrating others.
This environment has fostered selective outrage and double standards. For instance, rising antisemitic hostility is frequently met with silence by high-profile activists. Meanwhile, a hyper-racialised focus on ‘white privilege’ has birthed a reactive identitarian right centred on ‘anti-white racism’. When the white working class is treated as just another competing racial interest group – or when political policy frames socioeconomic disadvantage in racial terms – perhaps racial thinking has not disappeared, but has simply changed sides.
When a word that once pointed to a specific and devastating idea, and in social practice now functions as a moral trump card, are we really watching the growth of racism or a politicised stirring up of racial tension? And what’s the difference? Can we distinguish racial thinking from cultural or religious conflict? Is ‘racism’ the right word for hostility based on faith or migration status? What, in 2026, is racism – and what is it not? Is it time to stop talking about racism and its corollary, anti-racism, and look at the problems we face today with fresh eyes?
