Anti-White Racism: Myth or Reality?

We need to relearn what racism actually is

I recently wrote in The Telegraph about how my views on so-called “anti-white racism” have changed. I opened the piece with the following:

“I have long been reluctant to use the phrase ‘anti-white racism’. It is a term I have worried might fuel a grievance narrative and foster resentment in an already crowded field of competitive victimhood.

But as time passes, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore what looks like a growing pattern of institutional discrimination against white Britons.

The recent case involving West Yorkshire Police is another example, following closely on the heels of the controversy surrounding the Sentencing Council’s guidelines on pre-sentence reports, which many have rightly described as ‘two-tier justice’.”

I included this quote because, not long ago, I was among those who criticised figures on the online Right for using the idea of “anti-white racism” to create a grievance narrative - one that was being used to justify a politics of white identity. I still believe that critique stands. It’s clear that some people only object to racial discrimination when it’s directed at white people, not because they oppose it as a matter of principle.

Racism is wrong, no matter who it's aimed at. That includes white people, black people, or anyone else. But we also need to be clear-eyed about the different motivations behind different types of racism.

Take anti-black racism: it has long been rooted in false ideas of biological inferiority and has been used to justify the transatlantic slave trade, colonial rule, apartheid, and segregation (sorry to sound a bit woke!). Anti-Semitism is an ancient hatred, sustained over centuries by conspiratorial thinking and scapegoating.

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Anti-white racism, by contrast, is largely a misguided attempt—often by white institutional actors themselves—to supposedly redress historical injustices against minority groups. In practice, it means discriminating against white people in order to give preferential treatment to others. While prejudice against white people does exist in some communities, institutional-level anti-white policies are overwhelmingly created and implemented by well-meaning white elites.

Consider the Welsh Government’s recent grant scheme, which gives an additional £5,000 to student teachers from ethnic minority backgrounds. It’s part of the Welsh Labour administration’s plan to make Wales an “anti-racist nation” by 2030 (we’ve called this out in the past). According to the 2021 Census, 93.8% of Wales’ population identifies as white. Policies like this are unlikely to have been implemented without the support of large numbers of white managerial elites.

No doubt, a young white boy from a poor background, with few professional connections or opportunities, isn’t going to care much about whether the motivation behind his discrimination is rooted in guilt, historical redress, or something else entirely. If he’s being passed over in favour of someone from an ethnic minority background with a similar—or even more privileged—socioeconomic status, the impact is the same. And on that, I completely agree: it shouldn’t happen. We should oppose it. We should also be alert to the slippery slope. What might start as a wrong-headed, but ostensibly well-meaning policy of positive discrimination, could quite quickly descend into something much darker, embedding a structure that systematically discriminates against people for being white.

The unfortunate reality is that those crafting these policies, the managerial class, are not likely to suffer the consequences of the inevitable backlash. Resentment will more likely fall on ethnic minority individuals, who may be viewed with suspicion or hostility by white people who (rightly) feel they’re being treated unfairly.

And this is where I part ways with some of the louder voices talking about “anti-white racism”. Too often, discussions about anti-white racism are hijacked by people who aren’t really interested in fairness or equality at all. Too often, the loudest voices seize on legitimate grievances—not to advocate for a society where no one is discriminated against on racial grounds—but to stir resentment against ethnic minorities as a group. Instead of building solidarity across racial and class lines, it deepens division and stokes racial antagonism.

None of this should come as a surprise. The redefinition of racism by critical race theorists—from a belief in racial superiority and discrimination on racial grounds to “prejudice plus power”— has inevitably led to blind spots. Under this framework, racism is something only white people can perpetrate. This conveniently erases or excuses racism directed at white people or people perceived as white like some Jewish groups, or racism within minority communities, such as terms like “Uncle Tom” or “coon”. Meanwhile, the definition of racism has been stretched so far that even white people wearing dreadlocks or asking someone where they’re from can be deemed racist.

We’ve lost the plot.

Just as we’ve had to relearn what free speech actually means—after some argued that it should only be free if it helps redistribute power—we now need to relearn what racism actually is.

Yes, anti-white racism exists. But racism in any form is corrosive. And it should be opposed consistently, not selectively.

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📢 JOIN THE EQUIANO PROJECT AT THE UNION CLUB, LONDON

Musa al-Gharbi, in conversation with Ralph Leonard and chaired by Helen Lewis, will discuss the future of progressive politics and the cultural contradictions of today’s elite. Based on al-Gharbi’s book We Have Never Been Woke, the panel will explore whether we’re moving into a post-woke era—and what might come next.

🥂Stick around afterward for drinks and informal conversation. Tickets and info on our website.

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