Nowadays, in the society in which we live, few people openly consider themselves racist. However, everyday life is replete with discriminatory ideas, behaviours and words, with racism feeding on one of the hallmarks of the way in which our societies are built: inequality.
Racism is the discriminatory classification of people into groups on the basis of skin colour and/or country of origin. It is founded on the arbitrary assignation of negative characteristics to an entire group, in order to justify their unequal treatment and legitimize their social exclusion. As such, racist thinking justifies discrimination, social segregation and/or the economic exploitation of one or more communities.
But racism is not a definition, nor is it an abstraction: it is a concrete reality that causes everyday harm, a series of actions and behaviours that infringes upon people’s rights and undermines their wellbeing and dignity.