In December 2025, the UN Committee against Racial Discrimination issued a report stating that the situation has worsened for many groups in Sweden since their last review in 2018. Given that racism has increased in Sweden, this essay aims to study the UN’s and the Swedish state's understanding of racism.        Using theoretical frameworks by Sandra Fredman and Stefan Jonsson, the essay explores understandings of racism in the UN and the Swedish state respectively through reviewing the committee's report and the state's response to the committee. The purpose of this essay is to show similarities and differences between different understandings of racism between the UN and the Swedish state.       The essay concludes that there are certain tensions between the UN and the Swedish state where the UN understands racism as a phenomenon that is structural and embedded in the state's institutions, while the Swedish state does not believe that racism exists in the institutions of society. Racism may be recognized by the Swedish state, but racism is considered more as an individual's action or attitude than a structural factor. Keywords: State, UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, CERD, Structural and Institutional Racism, Human Rights, Equality, Exclusion Mechanisms