By Gillian Schutte
Racism remains a deeply entrenched and insidious structure, not merely shaping South Africa but sustaining global systems of domination, exploitation, and control. Throughout my research and writing on this topic, I have often encountered claims that racism is an “incurable disease”—a notion that, somewhat disturbingly, is embraced by some who regard themselves as radical thinkers.
Yet, far from being radical, this framing represents a deeply flawed and depoliticised understanding of racism. Instead of exposing the systemic underpinnings of white supremacy, this metaphor reduces racism to an individual pathology, effectively obscuring the material and structural foundations of racial oppression. Such conceptualisation demands critical interrogation, as it deflects attention from the urgent project of dismantling the very foundations that perpetuate white supremacy.
To the discomfort of many, I have consistently argued that liberal forms of anti-racism are fundamentally inadequate, as they fail to address the political economy of race and the entrenched power dynamics that sustain global inequalities. Liberalism, in its aversion to systemic critique, cannot grapple with the realities of racial capitalism and the violence it wreaks on racialised bodies. A truly radical engagement with racism requires abandoning these superficial framings and confronting the systemic forces that uphold racial capitalism and imperialist exploitation.
The metaphor of racism as an “incurable disease” epitomises the broader liberal tendency to externalise and individualise societal problems, casting white people as passive victims of a force they cannot control. This framing implicitly positions white individuals as morally enlightened simply for recognising the existence of racism, thereby placing them outside the oppressive system they continue to benefit from. This is the antithesis of radical thought, which demands not mere recognition, but accountability and direct engagement with the structures of power that sustain white supremacy. To position oneself as a passive sufferer of racism as a disease is not only intellectually dishonest—it reinforces the very system of oppression it seeks to critique.
As I have argued in What Whiteness Isn’t (March 2015): “In a radical anti-racism framework it is seldom that a white individual or group is being attacked. Rather, it is the ‘system of whiteness’ that is deconstructed to reveal the historically skewed power relations that continue to reinvent new strands of insidious dominance in contemporary times. It is this system that must be dismantled to allow for a radical reimagining of humanness and oneness, so that all people are able to access their full potential and live with the dignity that is their birth right.”
This framing does not sit comfortably with many white people as evidenced in the vicious backlash provoked by my 2016 article All whites are racist until whiteness is defunct. Structurally and systemically speaking, this statement remains a truism, and since I am white-skinned, I include myself in this critique. This is not a personal condemnation but an acknowledgement that whiteness, as a system, confers unearned privileges on all those racialised as white. No amount of guilt, remorse, or personal reflection can absolve one of these privileges. For years, I have argued that white people frequently perform guilt as though it exempts them from the responsibility of dismantling the system from which they benefit. The metaphor of racism as an incurable disease is emblematic of this performance—while it acknowledges the existence of racism, it absolves white people of the responsibility to challenge their complicity within the system of whiteness.
The metaphor of racism as a disease that “afflicts” white people functions as a psychological defence mechanism, allowing the speaker to project the problem outward, thereby distancing themselves from the issue they purport to critique. This projection serves to preserve the speaker’s ego, insulating them from the discomfort that comes with confronting their own complicity in the system of white supremacy. It allows them to maintain a sense of moral superiority, as though their awareness of racism somehow absolves them of its effects. This is the kind of intellectual evasion that allows whiteness to persist unchallenged under the guise of awareness.
In my critique of white liberalism in ‘The Whiteness Default’ (2013) I highlighted the problem of performative guilt, arguing that “Comradeship or writing pro-Black slogans into articles never absolves one of being white.” True radicalism requires more than this performative awareness—it demands an active, unrelenting, counter-hegemonic engagement with the structures of power that sustain whiteness. The metaphor of racism as a disease functions as a form of intellectual retreat, allowing white people to acknowledge the problem without undertaking the far more difficult work of dismantling the system that confers unearned power and privilege upon them.
Racism, Capitalism, and Global Hegemony
The fundamental flaw in the statement under critique is not just its reduction of racism to an individual affliction, but its failure to acknowledge that racism is a core feature of global capitalism. Racism is not an aberration within capitalism—it is one of its essential components. As critical race theorist Derrick Bell’s theory of ‘interest convergence’ demonstrates, racial progress only occurs when it aligns with the interests of white elites. This reiterates the fact that racism is not a mere matter of personal prejudice or bias; it is deeply intertwined with the economic exploitation that capitalism thrives on.
Race and racism are used to divide the working class and to justify the brutal exploitation of racialised bodies. Within the global capitalist system, racism enables the extraction of resources and labour from the Global South, ensuring that wealth and power remain concentrated in the hands of Western elites. Institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank enforce neoliberal policies on non-white nations, driving them into debt and dependency while allowing Western corporations to extract their resources and labour. Racism provides the ideological justification for this exploitation, framing non-white populations as inferior, underdeveloped, or dangerous, thus rendering their subjugation and oppression morally acceptable.
The metaphor of racism as a disease entirely neglects these broader socio-political and economic dimensions. The focus remains on individual white people “suffering” from racism, rather than on the global structures of capitalism and imperialism that sustain white supremacy. Whiteness is not just a local phenomenon; it is a global system of power, sustained by the exploitation of non-white bodies and the extraction of resources from the Global South.
Steve Biko, one of the most incisive radical thinkers on race and oppression, recognised the limitations of white liberalism long before theorists like Bell articulated their critiques. In ‘I Write What I Like,’ Biko cautioned that white liberals often engage in anti-racism not to challenge white supremacy, but to assuage their own guilt—and in many cases, to profit from anti-racism efforts. Biko understood that much of the solidarity performed by white people centres on their own moral journey rather than on the dismantling of the structures that uphold racial dominance.
Biko’s critique goes further by exposing how white liberals seek to maintain control over the anti-racist movement, positioning themselves as leaders, icons, or allies while continuing to benefit from the privileges of whiteness. He astutely observed: “White liberals are only prepared to act within the interests of Blacks so long as their own vested interests are not at stake.” Both Biko and Bell understood that racism is not an individual failing—it is a tool wielded to maintain economic and political power.
Radical versus Liberal Thinking
The essential difference between radical and liberal thinking lies in how each approaches the structures of power. Liberal thinkers, limited by their frameworks, focus on individual transformation and symbolic gestures. Radical thinkers, by contrast, confront the structural and global dimensions of racism and white supremacy. Racism is not an individual condition to be “cured”—it is a deeply embedded system of exploitation that must be utterly demolished. Radical thinking requires nothing less than a fundamental reorganisation of society, both economically and politically.
It is a dangerous assertion for any white person, no matter how pro-Black, to claim exemption from the construct of whiteness and the privileges it affords them. Until whiteness as a system is dismantled, these claims are nothing more than a façade for maintaining the status quo.
* Gillian Schutte is a film-maker, and a well-known social justice and race-justice activist and public intellectual.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of or Independent Media.
