Racism is an ideology of power. An ideology is a group of ideas, stories, and theories that reinforce the system of power. The idea of racisms is that it enforces white supremacy. The important thing about racism is that it was due to reinforcing the legitimacy of the slave trade as well as white supremacy. The thing to understand is that people didn’t commit the slave trade because they were racists, it was established to legitimize and normalize the trade. At the time, people didn’t think in racial categories. There wasn’t a pseudo-theory that grouped people into racial categories like today. It’s the main reason why Africans sold their own people. Racism is a fantasy that has become a reality through ideology. Basically, the argument is that you have this system of inequality and exploitation. In order to stabilize its power, both sides must absorb this ideology. For example, on slave ships, it was a horrible experience. Say for example that crew members join up with slaves to revolt against the captain. But how does race change it? The crew then identifies themselves with the captain which reinforces white solidarity. If slaves were better looking or were smarter than these white members, why would they be slaves? It’s because as a whole, by nature, Africans are a slave class by group while whites by group are superior. So, racism emerged out of the Atlantic slave trade to normalize it. This fantasy of white supremacy-white solidarity-is a system of power. Racism on the other hand, is not an attitude but a theory of power. One can’t be anti-white racists because we live in a society of white supremacy. In other words, you can’t be racist against someone who has power. The idea of racism is that it disempowers the people who don’t have power. At first, Africans didn’t think of themselves as a unified group. But due to racism, over time they started to build sense of a unified group and this powered them.