“Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.”

- James Baldwin

COMMENT | In a recent interview with Malaysiakini, Chandran Nair said that in order to dismantle institutional racism, the non-Malays “... do not need to believe that the only way to dismantle it is through the political system as that is a sham and the events of the last two years have shown us that racism is what runs through the corridors of our entire political system.

That Chandran (above) advocates are good old fashioned liberal civil action and disobedience as a kind of grassroots alternative to mainstream politics in this country.

While I think that people advocating for change on a personal and localised level is always constructive, the reality is that institutional change can only come about through the political process.

And for the record, I think many folks would be surprised as to how many personal and professional testimonials about the institutional racism in the private sector if we really had a race reckoning discussion in this country.

When partisans argue that this is an apartheid system, the reality is that as...