Explorations of the links between Envy and Racism

‘Envy is a key mechanism of any racist ideology where the other is paradoxically imagined as possessing a stolen enjoyment or an unfair advantage  justifying any collective resentment.’

(Salice, n.d.)

I was recently asked a question by a colleague who was doing a podcast, ‘Dwight through your career, have there ever been moments when you have had to deal with the envy of others?’

I looked at him, eyes slightly narrowed, a wan smile on my face, and simply replied ‘Yes, of course there have.’ 

Envy has been a core part of this journey of mine through throughout my career.  From the person who sent me an email after I had published an article in Therapy Today, that she was surprised that I was doing a doctorate because she always saw herself as my intellectual superior, to the peoples who decided that I was only doing a doctorate because I was egotistically driven, and that they would never do such a thing (they eventually did but never completed) (Turner, 2023).  Just offering you these two examples, examples out of so, so many I could add, of the kinds of attacks which I have endured over the course of my career as a psychotherapist, my response would probably be more accurate to say, why wouldn’t there have been envious attacks upon me during my career. 

This blog is therefore about the link between envy and racism, and explores, or opens the doors to, asking people from across the racialised spectrums to explore their experiences and understandings of envy, especially when it comes to how they see the racialised other. 

‘Envy is a littleness of a soul which cannot see beyond a certain point and if it does not occupy the whole space feels itself totally excluded.’

William Hazlitt

I remember when I first started doing a doctorate, there were a number of times when I had to endure the envy of others.  From the micro aggressive put downs about if I was ever going to read the books I was walking around with, to being talked about in rooms full with other practitioners for even daring to undertake such a project, envy has always been present in my experiences as a practitioner, and as a researcher (Sue et al., 2007).

Or from the more overt gatekeeping around who should be talking about what subjects (thereby denying or ignoring my own richer experiences), to the (and this was a strange one) former partner who spent 6 months applying for 8 jobs, getting most of them and then moving on to the next one as she competed with myself cos, I was also a published doctor and she had never dated one before so had always been the superior one in her relationships. 

It’s link to racism is an easy one to make in the instances, and I don’t even have to use my own experience to do so.  So much of the sad story of Professor Jason Arday is rooted in the envy of one racialised group against a supposed other (Adams & Dodd, 2026).  The fact that so many other professors from the Global Minority have failed to be vilified in such a way, and that they, the press, the society around us, went after someone who was in a position of power and prominence, it says a lot of the link between envy and racism.  This is what himpathy, that wonderful phrase coined by Kate Manne speaks of in the unconscious/conscious allowances made for those who are white, male, middle and upper class, and normally heterosexual over any other group or gender, no matter what they do, no matter what misdemeanour they carry out (Manne, 2018). 

The flipside to this is that to survive this envy the racialised other can either make itself smaller or can remove itself to a space whereby it is amongst others similar to itself who are not about to compete with it (with competition being another facet of this struggle).  Self othering, a deadening of one’s own soul is the means by which the racialised other tries to survive.  Yet, it is also a means which doesn’t work.  There will always be the attacks against the self.  There will always be the minority stress of walking along a street and being picked out by someone of the Global Minority as having something, someone, which they want but seemingly can’t have (Feinstein et al., 2012).

‘Envy has always hidden behind moral indignation.’

Doris Lessing

The quote above though speaks to the role envy and racism also plays in the positioning of one group as systemically superior to another (Krizan & Johar, 2012).  That all of the comments presented in this briefest of blogs was from someone who would identify as white, is obvious.  That they should also be acting into their discomfort when they witness a person of colour standing in a position they cannot themselves reach, this must being up so much of the white fragility that DiAngelo talks about (Diangelo, 2018).  Yet, and I state this again, I do not feel this book says enough psychologically about what fragility is, for this blog, this is the meeting of the supremacist with their envy of a racialised other they have been told they are superior to. 

The narcissism embedded here in this experience, though is one which within a capitalist system is often manipulated upon by those in power who need an other to dissuade those with eyes from seeing just how much they are accumulating whilst they are distracted.  The creation of an other, the immigrant, the person of colour, the person who is politically correct or woke, one aspect of the vilification of these groups is the promotion of the envy that these peoples are stealing their jobs, taking their women, doing something, something, something, which the rest of us should be envious of.  Envy here therefore becomes a political tool, which can be misused to manipulate and gaslight those who are truly suffering without or because of.  In fact, one of the most fascinating aspects in exploring this topic for this blog is the link to the sense of impotence which hostile envy promotes as per the paper by Salice and Sanchez  (2019), the linking of this kind of envy (which is one of many) to how we relate to power being an important one. 

In these instances then, in order to regain power, much like the child in Kleinian psychology, envy becomes attacking and destructive (Mitchell, 1986).  For adults though it is the protesters outside hotels and boarding houses trying to frighten immigrants.  It is the stories that these immigrants are getting free phones, free lodging and food, free healthcare from the National Health Service.  It is then that primal need to destroy these people because how dare they have what I, what they, what we, cannot. 

There is another side to envy though, and it is one I do need to mention.  That is when envy is less egoically driven, but when envy is seen as a doorway towards a wish to achieve something that one wants or can do.  Envy becomes a gateway, a light in the darkness in the tunnel of hate for self and other which if one can harness it, if one can let it guide you, can take us to all kinds of places.  For example, I owe a huge debt of thanks to all of the colleagues who came and asked me what it was like to do a doctorate (for example as this is where we started), and who I had conversations with as they started out and walked their own journeys.  Watching them finish, so many of them, made me so incredibly proud of who they are, and reminded me that they met me in my humanity when they sought me out.  I wasn’t something to be denigrated by them, I was someone, a human being who was just getting on with his life.  Their ability to harness their enviousness meant that I maintained my humanity in their eyes. 

‘Music plays softly in my ears,

As I sit on this train crossing the Downs.

These rolling hills waving to me,

Letting me bask in their freeing energy.

My body supple, my tattoos on me vibrant,

My daughter looking at me smiling full of love.

I sit tall in my chair, and I muse because I am free.

Free from the shackles of your envy.’

References

Adams, R., & Dodd, V. (2026, August). Jason Arday, professor at centre of Cambridge plagiarism row, found dead. Guardian Online, 1. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/14/jason-arday-found-dead-after-resigning-from-cambridge-over-plagiarism-claims

Diangelo, R. (2018). White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Beacon Press.

Feinstein, B. a, Goldfried, M. R., & Davila, J. (2012). The relationship between experiences of discrimination and mental health among lesbians and gay men: An examination of internalized homonegativity and rejection sensitivity as potential mechanisms. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 80(5), 917–927. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029425

Krizan, Z., & Johar, O. (2012). Envy Divides the Two Faces of Narcissism. Journal of Personality, 80(5), 1415–1451. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2012.00767.x

Manne, K. (2018). Brett Kavanaugh and America’s ‘Himpathy’ Reckoning. The New York Times, 1–3. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/opinion/brett-kavanaugh-hearing-himpathy.html

Mitchell, J. (1986). The selected Melanie Klein. Penguin Limited.

Salice, A. (n.d.). Envy , Racial Hatred , and Self-Deception.

Salice, A., & Sánchez, A. M. (2019). Envy and us. European Journal of Philosophy, 27(1), 227–242. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12390

Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A. M. B., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice. American Psychologist, 62(4), 271–286. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.62.4.271

Turner, D. D. L. (2023). The Psychology of Supremacy. Routledge.