( Ten minute read) 

I often wonder if I was of African decent what I would think or feel hearing a raciest song sung in support of the English RUBGY team –  Swing Low swing Hight, while the other game Football is taking the knees to say black lives matter.

Nobody is born racist, but if you grow up in a society where you have advantages over people from other groups, the like hood is that you will become raciest not even know you are being racist in how you are acting.

Racism is built into society and is “the product of centuries of history.” 

We to day focus on the individual racist attitudes rather than the bigger problem because it’s harder to pin down the wider problem. However the twentieth century is termed the “century of genocide” because of the high number of cases of genocide. The genocide of the Armenians, the Holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda are the three genocides of the twentieth century.  

The Rwandan Civil War—in which armed militias of Hutu people had slaughtered members of the Tutsi ethnic minority at least 800,000 are thought to have been murdered in just a hundred days.

It is a modern idea that everything can be measured and classified, even a “race” and its character (Bauman 1989: 68). This classification of races, coupled with the modern idea of a constantly improvable society, leads to Social-Darwinist ideas of the survival of the fittest (Kaye and Stråth 2000: 15).

An important indicator for the potential of future genocide is a difficult life condition, such as war or an economic crisis. migration. People were transformed into commodities, a condition in which a “surplus population” could simply be eliminated.

As with war, during times of a recession, people are inclined to find someone to blame for their misfortune. Humans feel the need to blame an out-group and eliminate that threat to society.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has rekindled modern debates about the definition and prosecution of genocide. The existing laws of war are inadequate to handle the new forms of political violence afflicting the world. Crimes against humanity, meanwhile, can take place in times of peace and include murder, enslavement, and persecution based on factors like gender, ethnicity or religion, race. 

Racism can not be most simply understood as someone behaving differently to another person based on the colour of their skin or culture. For example, Islamophobia is when Muslims are the victims of attacks just because of their religion.

Racism reflects an acceptance of the deepest forms and degrees of divisiveness and carries the implication that differences between groups are so great that they cannot be transcended.

At least 24 million Africans were sold to slave traders around the world.

The word Nigger can be traced back in history to slavery, but it is far from the only word to describe racism. The full word was a nickname British scientist Charles Darwin and his wife Emma used in their letters to each other in the 1840s.

It was also the name given to a black Labrador which was the mascot of the Royal Airforce 617 Squadron – famously known as the Dam busters – during World War Two. In July this year, the name of the Dam busters’ dog was removed from its gravestone as RAF Scampton “did not want to give prominence to an offensive term.

After World War Two, the racism directed at black and Asian people who had emigrated to the UK from Commonwealth countries saw the word come to be used as a racial slur in everyday life – and politics.

At the 1964 election, Conservative MP Peter Griffiths won the Smethwick seat in the West Midlands after a campaign which used the slogan: “If you want a [N-word] for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour.  The slogan spelt out the full word. That election was more than 50 years ago – but the word is still used in that derogatory way today.

The word survives is an act of redemption by black folk. The word survives on the conditions that black folks have inscribed for it and nobody else can take that. And it becomes violent when other people try to take it and use it.

I would hope most people would understand why that is deeply offensive and problematic because it still is used in that context now.

For that reason, most human societies have concluded that racism is wrong, at least in principle, and social trends have moved away from racism, but there are many dimensions to racism.

We have to understand the connection between slavery, colonialism and racialised capitalism, which creates the conditions for the climate crisis.

Why climate change is inherently racist.

Climate change and racism are two of the biggest challenges of the 21st Century. They are also strongly intertwined. Climate change is a multiplier of all forms of social disadvantage, with divisions along class lines, gender, age, and much else besides.

There is a stark divide between who has caused climate change and who is suffering its effects.

Climate change is often understood as an environmental issue, one that we are all in together, and therefore not something that could be in any way construed as racist.

However the Global North is responsible for 92% of all excess global emissions, while the Global South is responsible for only 8%. The nations of the Global North have effectively colonised the atmospheric commons. They’ve enriched themselves as a result, but with devastating consequences for the rest of the world and for all of life on Earth.

Here is where energy use and resource consumption are highest – and therefore where carbon footprints are largest. It is not difficult to see that a racial disparity is at play here. The European colonial powers, and the European settler colonies, are disproportionately responsible for causing excess emissions.

Centuries of unequal power relationships have embedded this structural injustice, so that climate change echoes the power relationships of colonialism and empire.

Independence may have brought political freedom, but many structural injustices remain.

The flow of wealth is the same as it was under empire, with rich white countries extracting what they need from other countries. People from ethnic minorities are more likely to have persistent low incomes and among young people unemployment rates are high.

Without taking into account those most affected, climate solutions will turn into climate exclusion and there is worse to come. 

For example the home of slavery in the USA the Mississippi River basin because of drought is now filling with salt water. 

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The most visible is inter-personal racism, which is ugly and all-too familiar. At its most obvious, this would include racist graffiti, online abuse, or racist chanting at football matches. Much of it is less overt than that, a matter of prejudice and stereotyping.

There are deeper levels to racism.

It can be institutional, where people of colour receive an inferior level of service or care. When dealing with institutional racism, there may not be any one specific event or person that can be identified as the problem. The difference in how people are treated is buried away in processes and systems – “racism without racists” as it is sometimes described.

When racism becomes structural in this way, it can operate without obvious intent.

This is certainly the case with climate change – there is no secret committee of white people plotting to impose climate disaster on the Global South. And yet people of colour still find themselves at a disadvantage, and experience differences in outcomes that are visible in the statistics.

Coming from a colonial past means it is from a period when one country invaded another, took control and forced their laws on the native people in order to exploit them. An example of this is that Britain colonised India, Ireland and North America, to name a few.

The idea of race was invented to magnify the differences between people of European origin and those of African descent whose ancestors had been involuntarily enslaved and transported to the Americas.

In North America and apartheid-era South Africa, racism dictated that different races (chiefly blacks and whites) should be segregated from one another; that they should have their own distinct communities and develop their own institutions such as churches, schools, and hospitals; and that it was unnatural for members of different races to marry.

Despite constitutional and legal measures aimed at protecting the rights of racial minorities the private beliefs and practices of many remained racist, and some group of assumed lower status was often made a scapegoat. That tendency has persisted well into the 21st century.

By the 19th century, racism had matured and spread around the world.

Those seen as the low-status races, especially in colonized areas, were exploited for their labour, and discrimination against them became a common pattern in many areas of the world.

It is quite challenging to determine if a person is racist or not based on a simple questionnaire.

In fact modern evolutionary biology is making enormous contributions to our understanding of how our ideas of race, racism, gender and sexism arise.

There is absolutely no basis for thinking in terms of “races”; The theory has been disproved in genetics, biology, anthropology (the study of human societies), geography and all of the sciences.

Racism is a social construct, which means it was created by people.

It was essentially propaganda to justify mass enslavement and dehumanisation. It also exploited fear that people can have of others who look or behave in ways they view as dissimilar to them.

Historically Irish people were “racialised” through the process of British conquest and colonialism in Ireland, although they have the same skin colour as the British. British colonial writing has labelled Irish people as drunken, as animals, treacherous, primitive, and illiterate. Today, many other groups of people (mostly “non-white” and non-European, but also including white-skinned groups like Irish Travellers or eastern European migrants in Ireland) still experience similar processes of racialisation.

In many parts of the world, migrants are racialised for being migrants. Jews are racialised for being Jews and Muslims are racialised for being Muslims.

Racism is one of many expressions of our evolved capacity to live and work in groups. Religious bigotry, ethnic mistrust and even an intense dislike.

A recent example is a group of fundamental Jews spiting at Christian in Israel. The world could wake up on Tuesday to a more religious-nationalist, belligerent and less tolerant Israel, turning into a democtatorship. The Jewish state will be more corrupt, religious-nationalist, less tolerant and liberal, and more belligerent at the expense of the Palestinians.

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How we might use an improved understanding of the origins of racism to elevate societies when we often conceal our attitudes and biases from others – and even from ourselves?

We all know that with the coming climate change people (not immigrants) are on the move and will do so in their billions as their homes become un – liveable.

The Question therefore is with the emerging understanding of race is it likely to lead to a more equitable society.

Not on your nelly – I am alright Jack is already prevalent, with Walls, Barbwire fences, Deportation to Rwanda,  It’s really its tied into the idea that people aren’t really human beings.

The problems, in short, are not about race: they are fundamentally social and economic, better seen in terms of social class and economic inequality than in racial terms.

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The main question posed by immigration is whether you are comfortable living near neighbours of a different race.

India ranks as the most racist of the countries. India has little immigration and few international residents. As a result, most of its people are of Indian descent themselves. This detail is considered to be a major contributing factor to racism in India.

Lebanon is another country comprised primarily of people who share a similar ethnic background. This low level of diversity means Lebanon’s citizens are typically opposed to mingling with people of other races for the sole reason that they are not used to doing so in a day-by-day setting.

Italy has a serious problem with racism. The racism isn’t restricted to right or left, old or young, rural or urban: it is noticeable everywhere.

The conundrum of Italian racism is that Italy, ever a country of contradictions, is also a place of remarkable generosity and hospitality.

Britain has made huge progress in countering discrimination against black people. No landlord any more could put up a sign in his window saying ‘No blacks or Irish’. In 1993, a black teenager called Stephen Lawrence was killed by a group of white men in an unprovoked racist attack in London.

The killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, at the hands of a white American police officer has sparked outrage and protest in the United States and throughout the world.

Qatar the most racist country, a “de facto caste system based on national origin. 

It’s this: why it is that black lives don’t seem to matter so much.

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What is the abiding poison of white privilege, and for which blacks themselves have no responsibility?

How worried are you about the prospect of racial polarisation on our streets? And what’s your answer to the underlying question: Is Britain racist?

It’s starkly evident that major ethnic and racial inequalities persist in employment, housing and the justice system.

Exploitation of ethnic, religious and cultural hatreds is probably the most universal feature of fascism/ with racism difficult to eradicate.

In other words, racism is when an individual, group, structure or institution intentionally or unintentionally abuse their power to the detriment (meaning to have a negative impact) on people, because of their actual or perceived “racialised” background.

Defines racism as any action, practice, policy, law, speech, or incident which has the effect (whether intentional or not) of undermining anyone’s enjoyment of their human rights.

Indeed, minds cannot be changed by laws, but beliefs about human differences can and do change, as do all cultural elements.

 Black and Muslim minorities have twice the unemployment rate of their white British peers and are twice as likely to live in overcrowded housing. They are also much more likely to be stopped and searched by the police. We could also add to the list the alarming ethnic differences in deaths from COVID-19.

That disparities of the kind demonstrated by the website do not, in themselves, prove that racism and discrimination are the driving forces behind the inequalities. But, when combined with other direct evidence, it’s hard to avoid concluding that they play a role.

Racism is too often used as a “catch-all explanation” for disparities and impediments for people from minority groups. Social media enormously amplifies racist views, to current modern immigration.

African voices are not well represented in climate summits, leaving climate justice out of the equation.

Without a doubt, racism influences the likelihood of exposure to environmental and health risks.

Whether by conscious design or institutional neglect, communities of colour in urban  ghettos, in rural ‘poverty pockets’, or on economically impoverished area’s  will face some of the worst environmental devastation.

Take wildfire vulnerability it is spread unequally across race and ethnicity.

If you want to understand why 40 years of climate diplomacy has failed to bend the curve on temperature rises, you have to go back and understand racialised capitalism – how race is codified to justify the exploitation and subjugation of people.

Climate justice, social justice and racial justice are all interconnected.

Even though some exploitative practices may be in the past, the legacy of their unjust structures remains, and carries through into decision-making about climate change today.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com