Domesticky

Let’s cut through the half hearted hand-wringing, the corporate diversity-washing and the baffling insistence that racism is some kind of accidental misunderstanding.

It’s not.

It’s a tool. A deeply embedded, well-maintained, and deliberately sharpened tool of the system we live in.

The real question isn’t why racism exists, but who benefits from its existence.

Because let’s be very clear: racism isn’t some unfortunate by-product of history.

It’s a feature, not a bug.

Here are five black and white reasons why racism continues to be a useful, strategic tool of the system:

1. Divide and Conquer

The oldest trick in the book: keep people fighting each other so they never turn on the real enemy: the people in power.

Racism ensures that working-class and oppressed communities are too busy distrusting and blaming each other to unite and challenge the structures that exploit them.

When people are pitted against one another based on skin colour, they don’t see the billionaire class, the corrupt politicians, or the exploitative corporations as the real threat. They see their neighbour.

2. Cheap and Exploitable Labour

Racism isn’t just about attitudes; it’s about economics. Throughout history, racism has justified slavery, apartheid, and migrant worker exploitation.

Even today, entire industries rely on underpaid and overworked Black and brown workers. Whether it’s sweatshops in Bangladesh, farm labourers in California, or minimum-wage workers in the UK, the racial hierarchy ensures a steady supply of labour that can be underpaid, mistreated, and easily replaced.

If racism disappeared overnight, wages would have to go up. Profits? Not so much.

3. Political Scapegoating

Ever noticed how every economic downturn magically turns into an immigration crisis? When governments and elites screw up – whether it’s through financial crashes, austerity policies, or crumbling public services – racism provides a convenient distraction. Instead of questioning why billionaires keep getting tax breaks while public services collapse, people are encouraged to blame ‘outsiders’ for taking jobs, housing, or benefits. The system doesn’t want an informed and angry population. It wants a divided, confused, and misdirected one.

4. A Justification for Violence and Control

Racism provides the moral cover for over-policing, mass incarceration and state violence.

If society is convinced that Black and brown people are inherently more dangerous, then locking them up, harassing them, and even killing them becomes ‘justified’ rather than what it really is: a grotesque abuse of power.

It’s why prisons in the U.S. and UK disproportionately hold Black men. It’s why Western nations bomb non-white countries with impunity. And it’s why a white person with a gun is a ‘troubled individual’ while a Black person with a hoodie is a ‘threat.’

And look no further than Palestine to see racism in its most blatant, violent form.

Palestinian men, women, and children are being slaughtered in real-time, their homes obliterated, their lives deemed disposable. And yet, the global outrage never reaches the fever pitch we see when white, Western lives are at risk. Governments that were quick to condemn other wars and occupations suddenly fall silent, or worse—actively fund the carnage.

How can that be anything other than racism?

An entire population’s suffering can only be ignored so systematically because the world has already decided their lives matter less.

5. Cultural and Psychological Control

Racism doesn’t just shape laws and economics; it seeps into minds. It tells white people they are inherently superior, even if they’re struggling. It tells Black and brown people they are lesser, even when they succeed. This psychological game keeps everyone in their place. It fuels self-doubt, internalised oppression and prevents true solidarity.

The system doesn’t just need racism to function. It thrives on it.

So What Now?

Racism isn’t an accident. It’s not about individual prejudice or ‘bad apples.’ It’s a system, designed and maintained because it works for those in power. Until we acknowledge that, we’ll keep seeing the same shallow attempts to ‘fix’ it — diversity hires, unconscious bias training, corporate Black History Month posts — all while the real machinery of racism grinds on, untouched.

If we want to dismantle racism, we have to stop treating it like a moral failing and start recognising it as the system’s most effective survival strategy. And if that’s the case, then the only real solution is to dismantle the system itself.

Anything less is just playing along.