Weaponized racism

In recent years, Spain has seen a worrying rise in structural racism, which is no longer a latent prejudice but is displayed with growing aggression in public space. This phenomenon is fuelled by hate speech that, under the rhetoric of security, cultural defence or migration control, gains legitimacy and becomes normal in political and media debate.

Far from being marginal, this racism has become a tool used by some parties to channel social discontent, sharpening polarisation and consolidating the idea that diversity is a threat. Campaigns linking immigration with crime, the singling out of whole communities (from the Roma people to people of North African origin) and tolerance of verbal and physical attacks show how inequalities and stigma are reinforced.

The dehumanisation of immigrants, reduced to figures, threats or ideological caricatures, opens the door to measures that cut fundamental rights: limits on access to housing and employment, bans on cultural or religious expression, or ethnic profiling by the police that entrenches exclusion. In this context, racism stops being a social residue and becomes a mechanism of control.

The risk is that racist violence comes not only from extremist individuals, but also from institutions that, by action or omission, allow these discourses to thrive. When political leaders repeat messages associating diversity with risk, or the seriousness of xenophobic attacks is played down, a climate is legitimised in which hatred is seen as acceptable. The calculated use of racism as a strategy of power thus not only erodes social cohesion, but feeds an ever deeper rift.