Race traitor is a pejorative reference to a person who is perceived as supporting attitudes or positions thought to be against the interests or well-being of that person's own race. For example, one or both parties to an interracial relationship may be characterized as "race traitors". As another example, a person who supports affirmative action or other policies that allegedly benefit races other than his/her own may be characterized as a "race traitor". The term is the source of the name of a quarterly magazine, Race Traitor, founded in 1993.
During Apartheid in South Africa, in which the white minority held exclusive political power, white anti-apartheid activists where characterised as "traitors" by the government.
Thomas Mair, who murdered British MP Jo Cox in 2016, regarded Cox as a "traitor" to the white race. Mair had also published letters criticising "white liberals and traitors" in South Africa who he described as "the greatest enemy of the old apartheid system".