‘It’s been the most extraordinary day,” the Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow remarked on air on Friday, referring to the pro-Brexit protesters flooding the centre of London. “A day which has seen … I have never seen so many white people in one place; it’s an extraordinary story.”

Predictably, perhaps, the reference to “white people” led to a backlash online, with some viewers taking it as an insult and others even calling the veteran broadcaster a “racist”.

“We are all sick to death of Jon Snow’s blatant bias, condescension and fake news”, wrote Nigel Farage, while tweeting a photo of a black man in a union jack bowler hat being stared down by a white anti-Brexit campaigner, as if an audition for a Benetton ad had gone terribly wrong.

With the regulator Ofcom said to be calculating how many complaints it has received over the comment, Channel 4 News has now apologised. The statement it issued is worth dissecting: it noted that this “was a spontaneous comment” reflecting Snow’s “observation that in a London demonstration of that size, ethnic minorities seemed to be significantly under-represented”, while saying it regrets “any offence caused by his comment”.

It is essentially an apology for offending people with facts. This is where we are now: a white person in trouble for calling other people white; a news organisation apologising for telling the truth.

The reality is, the leave march appeared predominantly white (which is clearly not the same as saying no BAME person wants to leave the EU), and it is entirely legitimate for a journalist to say so. In fact, it’s part of our job – examining race, sex and class helps us all understand the political climate better, just as thinking about the role of minorities and marginalised groups helps us question power, values and representation.

That Snow’s remarks caused such a fuss is a perfect display of how race inequality works. It is a reflection of white privilege that white people like me are so rarely defined by race that being referred to by our own skin colour is perceived as a personal affront. We are used to being seen and spoken about as individuals rather than a homogenous group – a privilege ethnic minorities are much less likely to enjoy in day-to-day life. There is also a fragile double standard to it. Did all the people claiming white people’s race is irrelevant in an anti-Brexit march kick up a fuss when Sajid Javid spoke of “Asian paedophiles” or when Catherine Blaiklock, the former Ukip activist, said that black men are violent due to high testosterone? (In fact, Farage worked with her.)

Rather than giving air to the frenzied complaints about Snow, it is worth thinking about why people such as Farage are so motivated to make them. Resisting accusations of being unrepresentative is a classic tactic of political groups who want to suggest they speak for the wider public; “pro-life” campaigners during the Irish referendum, for example, were accused of putting young people at the front of photos so it appeared that anti-abortion opinion went beyond the elderly. But, more than this, cries of “white racism” play perfectly into the manufactured culture war that an increasing number of careers feed off. It suits Farage and co very well to suggest that “the establishment” is out to get them, that the white majority are actually the persecuted group. Just look at the speed with which rightwing accounts, contrarian commentators and fringe politicians rushed to Twitter to express their outrage over Snow’s remark. Just as it is the new normal for the “alt-right” to whip up a crowd outside parliament with talk of “betrayal”, so social media is a breeding ground for persecution complexes and toxic racial division.

While it is understandable that Channel 4 felt the need to apologise as complaints rolled in, by doing so it surely validated the attitudes that led to them. This country has many issues with race it needs to address. Calling white people white is not one of them.