They have become used to being racially gaslit by the idea of “reverse” or “anti-white racism”, a phenomenon the comedian Aamer Rahman has pointed out would only make sense “if I had a time machine and I could go back in time to before Europe colonised the world and convince the leaders of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America to invade and colonise Europe, just to occupy them, steal their land and resources”…

In other words, in the dominant understanding of racism heavily promoted in the context of the “whitelash” that met the global Black Lives Matter movement, racism has been stripped of what the sociologist Miri Song calls its “history, severity and power”. Racism is no longer the ideology that accompanies racial capitalist systems of colonialism, slavery and imperialism; it becomes a matter of individual morality. Race, best understood as a technology that produces and maintains white supremacy as a global system of power, is reduced to bad behaviour…

Theories that people like Sam Kerr cannot be racist because they are of Indian origin do not go far enough in exposing the problem at stake. It all boils down to subjectivity and rightwing politicians playing to the “all lives matter” gallery…

Treating all forms of vilification involving people from either side of the colour line as racist does nothing to transcend the colour line. But it does serve a view that minimises racism to the benefit of a new class of postracial Black and Brown elites.