On Reflection | Racism and the Winter Olympics are just the tip of a white privilege iceberg: excerpts from Chandran Nair’s ‘Dismantling Global White Privilege’
- The racism that sparked Black Lives Matter only scratches the surface of the problem; global trade reinforces it, sport plays upon it and education colonises our minds, writes author Chandran Nair
- In his new book ‘Dismantling Global White Privilege’, excerpted below, he details how systemic racism is part of a wider structure of privilege that benefits the West
However, racism is just the tip of the iceberg to a much deeper and insidious phenomenon: white privilege. While systemised racism against African Americans is terrible and must be addressed urgently, the reality is that white privilege has a global reach and very real impacts on the way the world works, from business to geopolitics and media to culture.
Although this is a topic that many may consider inflammatory, it is important to have honest – and respectful – discussions about it if we are to create a more equitable world. Indeed, this is why I was invited by my publisher to write a book on the issue.
In the below excerpts, my aim was to highlight how white privilege has shaped our world; how it is poorly recognised and understood, how it operates at the highest level of international politics, and how it is perpetuated not only through systems of education but through sport, too.
Invisible injustices
To understand the impacts of white privilege, one must first understand what makes it global. Systemic racism is part of a much wider structure of privilege that benefits the West and white people around the world.
