A failure to understand the underlying theories behind racism means their moral objections is always accompanied by an underlying violent phantasy.

That there exists some degree of splitting up America into white and black is, I hope, not a contentious point and is certainly not something we need psychoanalysis to discover. Further, that the process of splitting is always violent is no great discovery. What a Kleinian psychoanalysis brings to the table is the claim that violent splitting always accompanies violent phantasy. In Freud's words, the splitting that begets these violent phantasies "correct the world"; in Jamesian terms it makes the world "more rational" (James, 1897, p 317; Freud, 1908, p 299). By exploring the role this violent phantasy plays in our psychical lives we gain a tool for explaining the recalcitrant nature of racist structures in our outwardly liberal culture. That is, instead of having to claim that ours is a nation of knowing hypocrites who hold to a secret racism as against the cultural ideal of equality, and who are somehow impervious to the imposition of a broadly held moral standard, we may instead say that what we are up against is a symptom of the failure of exactly that moral standard, that is, equality.

On this account then there is a direct genetic link between liberalism's claim on the equality of men and contemporary white racism. Specifically, because liberalism lacks a means to negotiate its own failing, the inconsistency between its ideals and our reality must be psychically reconciled, and the defense which operates to mend this inconsistency has as a direct product anti-black racism. In the Origins of Totalitarianism , Arendt approaches this very thought from the standpoint of political theory rather than from depth psychology, Equality of condition, though it is certainly a basic requirement for justice, is nevertheless among the greatest and most uncertain ventures of modern mankind. The more equal conditions are, the less explanation there is for the differences that actually exist between people; and thus all the more unequal do individuals and groups become. (Arendt, 1966, p 54)