Submitted by EAVsa in SouthAfrica

Racism is first and foremost a systemic relation. Currently we live under capitalism, which despite its phoney solutions such as BEE (which since its creation by literal apartheid monopoly capital has functioned to create a black capitalist class which would ultimately maintain relations that continue to harm the poor), functions through incentivising bosses to pay as little as possible to their workers, to maximise profit.

As a result, it incentivises the creation of whole groups of people who are seen as less than human and therefore can receive a less-than-human wage. This does not apply merely to race, but to all of the axes of oppression that produce identities in socioeconomic hierarchies, for example, gender, sexuality, nationality, ability, class and many others.

Centuries of colonialism and then apartheid cemented a white supremacist system that remains as such even as it creates a tiny black elite with political power. The vast majority of the poor and vulnerable remain people of colour.

Racism is not merely negative attitudes towards other races. That is prejudice. As a simplistic heuristic, then, racism = prejudice + power.

White supremacy is expressed in a myriad of ways, from how much access to basic needs, such as decent housing, water, electricity, plumbing - to other things like how far away people live from lucrative places to work, how long it takes us to travel to work (including whether you have access to private or public or no transport), and how much financial support people can relatively expect from their support networks (usually family), to how likely you are to be targeted, brutalised and imprisoned by police - to how many books a person grew up with in their home, to how many white people have dual citizenship. These are just some of the many more ways that, as an aggregate, white people through our white supremacist system are at the top of a socioeconomic hierarchy that benefits them simply by virtue of their whiteness.

When apartheid ended, the entire process was brokered and driven by corporate capital to ensure that they would keep their profits but lose the stigma and the economic sanctions. Apartheid ended through the work of many against it, but also in a very real sense because it became clear to big business that it would be more profitable to end formal apartheid. The transition as it was also ensured that key apartheid laws and functionaries remained in place, in particular in the mining and security sectors, which effectively guaranteed that the corruption endemic to apartheid would continue with the new leadership, regardless of their skin colour.

White people are at the top of a centuries-old constructed racial hierarchy and as such can only receive prejudice, but not racism.

The liberal and vulgarly individualist idea that racism is merely prejudice between peoples and not about relations between systemically advantaged and disadvantaged groups is itself racist, because it serves to maintain those systemic relations. The unmaking of those power relations, which exist is a myriad of ways not touched on here, is instead the task of people who are not racist.

As such, the position that one may be racist to white people is itself racist - ie it ignores what is really harmful about racism, the systemic element, and in doing so it works ideologically to maintain racism.

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Basil wrote

Thank you, this is a really good explanation of the difference between racism and prejudice that I hadn't been able to put into words before. I'll definitely use this explanation in the future

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EAVsa OP wrote

Cool, I am happy you found it useful!

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