In my opinion, wealth is the primary driving factor of that. Exploitation and abuse of the bottom by the top seems to occur in nearly every culture that doesn’t put in strict safeguards to neuter the privileged.

The British empire dominated so much of the globe that the white elites advanced to the Olympic level of exploitation, but if we blame it on their color alone, we are leaving the back door open for other ghoulishly rich groups to stand in their place.

I believe the real issue is the aristocratic class. In England, it was determined by heredity, and in America, it is determined by money, but the kind of person who inhabits that role is the same: mean spirited selfish assholes who fundamentally believe they are better than everyone else and that they deserve to get everything they want because the average Joe is inferior to them in every way. They think normal people serve no purpose unless they are serving the needs of an elite.

That attitude strikes me as profoundly anti-human, and I think they should be treated as what they are: a predator that threatens the entire species who must be eliminated for the common good.