Can’t believe I’m having to post this on the account I made to make fun of crypto and finance bros lol
The 'reverse racism' card is often pulled by white people when people of color call out racism and discrimination, or create spaces for themselves ... that white people aren't a part of. The impulse behind the reverse racism argument seems to be a desire to prove that people of color don't have it that bad, they're not the only ones that are put at a disadvantage or targeted because of their race. It's like the Racism Olympics. And it's patently untrue" (Blay, 2015).
REVERSE RACISM IS A MYTH
While assumptions and stereotypes about white people do exist, this is considered racial prejudice, not racism. Racial prejudice refers to a set of discriminatory or derogatory attitudes based on assumptions derived from perceptions about race and/or skin colour. Thus, racial prejudice can indeed be directed at white people (e.g., "White people can't dance") but is not considered racism because of the systemic relationship to power. When backed with power, prejudice results in acts of discrimination and oppression against groups or individuals. In Canada, white people hold this cultural power due to Eurocentric modes of thinking, rooted in colonialism, that continue to reproduce and privilege whiteness. It is whiteness that has the power to define the terms of racialized others' existence. Tim Wise explains how, for white individuals,
"When a group of people [such as racialized individuals] has little or no power over you institutionally, they don't get to define the terms of your existence, they can't limit your opportunities, and you needn't worry much about the use of a slur to describe you and yours, since, in all likelihood, the slur is as far as it's going to go. What are they going to do next: deny you a bank loan? Yeah, right. ... White perceptions are what end up counting in a white-dominated society. If whites say [Indigenous people] are savages (be they of the "noble" or vicious type), then by God, they'll be seen as savages. If [Indigenous people] say whites are mayonnaise-eating Amway salespeople, who the hell is going to care? If anything, whites will simply turn it into a marketing opportunity. When you have the power, you can afford to be self-deprecating, after all" (2002).
Ricky Sherover-Marcuse asserts that "we should not confuse the occasional mistreatment experienced by whites at the hands of people of color with the systematic and institutionalized mistreatment experienced by people of color at the hands of whites" (p. 2). While expressions of racial prejudice directed at white people may hurt the white person/people individually or personally, and are never to be condoned, they do not have the power or authority to affect the white person's social/economic/political location and privileges.
"Racism has nothing to do with feelings. It is a measurable reality that white people are not subject to, regardless of their income or status" (Harriot, 2018).
Reverse racism is a myth because it attempts to ignore the power/privilege dynamic between the individuals/groups involved; the myth of reverse racism assumes that racism occurs on a so-called level playing field, when in actuality, it does not.
One claim of "reverse racism" that is often made is in relation to affirmative actions programs: programs that were created to help ensure that non-white individuals are given equal consideration and opportunities, whether it is in regards to employment, school, or scholarships etc. For white individuals, programs such as this might feel like something is being "taken away." Zeba Blay outlines how white people often "believe deserving white students are discriminated against while academically unqualified students are given highly coveted college or company positions -- just because they happen to tick the 'ethnic minority' box.
This argument ignores the fact that affirmative action did not come out of nowhere -- there was a need for a system that would address the decades of underrepresentation of people of color both academically and in the job world." Sherover-Marcuse explains how "[a]ffirmative action programs are attempts to repair the results of institutionalized racism by setting guidelines and establishing procedures for finding qualified applicants from all segments of the population" (p. 2). In other words, these programs do not privilege people of colour but are an attempt to "level" the not-so-level playing field that has historically privileged a certain type of candidate.
↳ See our definition of White Privilege/White-Skin Privilege
References:
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Blay, Zeba. 2015. "4 'Reverse Racism' Myths That Need To Stop." HuffPost.
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Harriot, Michael. 2018. "Reverse Racism, Explained"
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Sherover-Marcuse, R. Revised 7/88. "A Working Definition of Racism."
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Wise, Tim. 2002. "A Look at the Myth of Reverse Racism"
Recommended Readings:
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A CARED member's anecdote "Reverse Racism is a Myth"
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Krishnan, Manisha. 2016. "Dear White People, Please Stop Pretending Reverse Racism Is Real"
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Rahman, Aamer. 2013. "Reverse Racism." Youtube.
@Thomas_Dankara had a great post in another thread:
Can the proletariat be “classist” against the bourgeoisie? No. Because of the power/privilege differential. Now apply this to other pairs of groups. That’s the idea.
Yeah, this ass-mad cracker got four comments removed for it in a thread, deleted his account, and is now making an ass of himself on multiple alts (none of which mods have deleted or banned yet): https://hexbear.net/post/206046
we don’t understand though, he’s been holding back this opinion for years
so on one hand he seems to have been aware enough to realize it was a bad opinion so he held it back for years, but on the other in those years he never came to understand why it was a bad opinion.
:this: Basically the definition of racism was changed but many people were not aware of the change, thus they get caught in semantics.
Because the person reacted with 'this,' and then followed with a comment illustrating to me that my comment was unclear. This is why I went more in detail.
As for the rest of your comments, all I can say is that it was not my intention to upset you.
You’re bullshit rests on the assumption Americans apply a strict synonymous definition to words like “prejudice”, “bigotry”, and “racism” when in fact they don’t
“I’m not racist, it’s just a little prejudice”
“I’m not racist, I’m a bigot it’s different”
There is widespread cultural understanding of the implied differences of these terms to the point racists everywhere can correctly deduce their meaning even if their application of these terms is complete bullshit
Right this gets to the heart of the semantic debate (which again, I think is not particularly relevant, though as a fan of philosophy of language, I do enjoy discussing).
Emphasis mine. This isn't a troll, just someone with a passion in a topic. It's important to have a clear understanding of the definitions of words like 'racism', especially in internal discussion. It's also important to recognize that connotation plays a much more important role when engaging with non-leftists out in the wild. If we want to convince people, we have to have an understanding of both.
Very much felt like someone starting to do a “what even are words anyway” argument about racism
It's an understandable assumption to make. A frustrating amount of people online will abuse linguistic analysis in order to score pedantic 'points' and derail conversations. It makes it hard to tell when someone is engaging to enrich the discussion.
Thank you for the pleasant engagement :stalin-approval:
I wrote this bit as you were editing, and I like it enough to keep it, but I can't find a way make it fit naturally:
There is as much a linguistic dimension to racism as there is a historical, ideological, or legal .
bitch this isn't a game to lose. I realize you have nothing at stake and nothing to lose - so stfu. for the rest of us, you still can't be racist to the fucking crackers that enslaved and immiserated everyone else.
apparently it's spring cleaning for stupidpol numbnuts that should have been cleared out 2 years ago.
In what fuckin universe is this “semantic”? Any dumbass American hick can intuitively detect the distinction when in large crowds, for instance public expressions of bigotry can either be cheered or booed
If some cumskin is hollering racial epithets during a town hall meeting and is applauded everything changes, the dynamic shifts, masks are dropped, an expression of individualized prejudice becomes an expression of racism
But if the cumskin was booed the chances of laughter, comedy, expressions of pity and a distinct lack of power for the expressed prejudice manifests socially in the crowd and a distinct lack of a certain -ISM becomes evident
It’s ironic the argument is defining the concept of power dynamics using the common understanding of the words and your talking about so-called obscure dictionary definitions, as if most American’s conception of racism isn’t tied up in imagery of Jim Crow, slavery, the border, and other institutionalized i.e. the “prescriptive definition” you claim isn’t in common usage when it obviously is
Any kind of "reverse" shit directed against disadvantaged/marginalized people are overwhelmingly bullshit. Like "reverse sexism" directed at women, when most if not all problems that are complained about are brought about by men in the first place.
Women making fun of your penis? Then stop making it a huge deal and mocks other men over it.
Promiscuous women playing off men? Then stop perpetuating this toxic dating culture and stop demonizing women's sexuality.
Women are treated nicer? The stop infantilizing women.
Women not want to work in the dirty trade jobs? Then tear down the shitty boys only culture and stop propagandizing that jobs are gendered to little kids.
Women sexual abuser are treated better? Then stop sexualizing and fantasizing about little kids getting SA by older women.
Women not dying war? Then stop trying to bar women from the military. Or even better, stop starting stupid wars that will only benefit rich men.
Thanks, but it’s a great write up from here: https://www.aclrc.com/myth-of-reverse-racism
TIL the difference between racism and racial prejudice. Another lib part of me smashed
I've always said and thought that white people can experience interpersonal racism but can't experience systemic racism. Is this accurate?
e: I acknowledge that "interpersonal racism" is probably just saying individual prejudice while jumping through hoops so if I'm wrong on those grounds then that tracks
Yeah, I've always felt like the "Racism = Prejudice + Power" formula is needlessly confusing and would be vastly improved by just adding the word Systemic before Racism.
Like it or not most people use the word racism to describe any kind of racial prejudice, I'm guessing that that's why the term "systemic racism" even exists in the first place, to distinguish the two. It's fine to use racism as a short hand for systemic racism in leftist or academic circles, but telling ordinary white people "it's actually impossible to be racist against you crackkkers :gigachad-hd:", although very funny, is not really the best way to educate them.
Hard agree, thank you for putting into words what I've been trying to formulate without sounding like an asshat
I’ve just defined racism to include power when explaining it to people.
Hey, if that works for you, by all means keep doing it. It's just that in my personal experience white people get really defensive when you do that, they think it's a spooky ploy to redefine racism and make it socially acceptable to be bigoted towards white people. :shrug-outta-hecks:
It is accurate for the US. Some people argue that in Europe, Eastern European people, who are generally considered white, are subject to systemic discrimination based on their ethnicity. I agree with that view, but it's arguable if that is racist or rather national-chauvinist. The American and European perspective on this are just very different.
What we have to keep in mind here is that racism was constructed differently from one society to the next, depending on how it best served the interests of the ruling class . In my home country Germany, racism is still heavily influenced by nazi race "science", which has led to the systematic murder of millions of Eastern European people during a brutal war of extermination. Racializing slavic peoples was front and center in that ideology, as it served to justify the invasion, pillaging and mass murder that was conducted during the Generalplan Ost. Structurally, this was like an attempted speedrun of the genocidal westward expansion of the settler project in America, and it was in fact directly inspired by the genocide of the Indigenous peoples of North America. These people were labeled as "subhuman", they were shot en masse, they were subject to systematic sexual assault, their villages were burnt to the ground, as PoWs they were purposefully worked to death or starved to death. 3 million PoWs from the USSR died in nazi captivity, no other ethnicity suffered similar losses as prisoners on any side of WW2. It could very well be described as the second worst thing the nazis did, and that's really saying something given the long, long list of their atrocities. This also has effects until this day, there is definitely at least racial prejudice against Eastern Europeans, which can be seen in Russophobic war propaganda right now, in the fetishization of Ukrainian women seeking refuge from the war, but also in a general cultural attitude that sees all men from the East as vodka-swilling criminals and all women from there as submissive sex toys. Such attitudes are very widespread culturally, so widespread that many of the Polish people i know try to pass as German, train to get rid of their accent, try their hardest to be a "model minority", keep the last name of their German ex-wive instead of their birth name to avoid discrimination etc.
I understand that my BIPoC comrades in America have a very different perspective on this subject, as they suffer daily from structural racism built upon the settler ideology, which is constructed along the British-Imperialist ideology of whiteness instead of nazi race "science". In that ideology, if you are white or not is front and center and the standards for being "nonwhite" are so strict that even the nazis thought of them as too rigid. For a Black person living in America and not being familiar with the details of nazism and WW2, it most likely sounds as if i'm belittling their lived experience when i argue that a Pole or Russian, who would never face systemic racism in America, can be subject to not just racial prejudice, but outright racism that has historically been used to justify a genocide.
So i'm extremely reluctant to say "yes, racism against slavs is real" when i make that point in an American context. In no small part because "anti-white racism" is also a fash talking point here in Germany, where chuds think being called a Kartoffel or an Alman by muslim kids is akin to being called the n-word, which obviously is the biggest bs imaginable. As a trans woman i know what it's like to see people use actual slurs for me. When people call me a Kartoffel, i can shrug it off without problems, that doesn't affect me, that doesn't threaten me, that isn't tied to a very real risk of violence and discrimination i face for being trans. Equating that kind of prejudice, that kind of "crackerphobia" or w/e with racism against Black people, with islamophobia and antisemitism, with queerphobia, with ableism, that's a fucking joke. We do not need to argue that. I have a direct comparison and it's just laughable to equate this. But we Kartoffels and yanqui crackers aren't the only white people out there - there's lived experiences that are very different from ours and the historic context they're placed in makes it seem highly problematic to discount them.
The question here is mostly if we understand racism as something that works along the lines of "white" and "non-white" or as something that works along the lines of "aryan" and "not aryan". If it's the latter, than there are some white people that suffer from racism. but they do not suffer from it for being white, they suffer form it for not being considered white enough, and that racism is coming from other white people, not from non-whites.
Calling people crackers pisses off racists though. Like enough it got Hasan banned from twitch for a while.
Also chauvinism is very much a real thing and a lot of the weird china arguments are grounded in it.
I know, but sometimes people just lose their shit so easily around here and everything removed into name-calling and trying to get a ‘win’ - better to do what you’ve done with your post and actually explain things so that people can learn
I'm not gonna stop being an Eastern chauvinist, can't make me
Gotta say, Americans have a bizarre relationship with race and language. It’s like you try to make up for the racism with linguistic taboos.
Anyway, if you wanna run the argument, a solid way is to go to the etymological roots of ‘racism’, which places its origin as a 1930s era description of a racial doctrine that society be organised by race, rather than a shorthand for any form of racial prejudice.
The awkwardness is, that’s a little out of kilter with how it’s used nowadays. Now, ‘racism’ is used to describe any instance of individual racial prejudice, on the basis that racial prejudice continues to cement racialised social stratification. That gets a little strained when you get into the realm of stereotypes or microaggressions, though.
I think a fair compromise would be to agree that you can’t be racist to white people, but you can microaggress them, and microagressions aren’t racist.
Anyway, if you wanna run the argument, a solid way is to go to the etymological roots of ‘racism’, which places its origin as a 1930s era description of a racial doctrine that society be organised by race, rather than a shorthand for any form of racial prejudice.
:very-smart: :thinking-about-it: :stalin-approval:
If anyone has a resource they like better, post it here. I’m going to log off because I have better things to do unlike the weird not-banned white guy flipping out in a corner because he couldn’t say the n-word lol
So, I get all of that, but there's still so many questions left.
Like, did the definition only shift in american english, or is that also true for the brits? What about other historically majority white country's languages like german or french?
What about countries with a majority of people of color with a history of genocide and oppression, like the turks, for example? Can they be racist? Is it impossible for armenians or kurds to be racist towards the turks? Because I'm pretty sure that, for example, South Koreans and the Chinese have lots of derogatory terms for each other, and call each other racist when the other side uses them.
And, even though someone else already asked a similar question (and got scolded for it), is it really that clever to shift the definition of a widely used term like racism from it's colloquial meaning to an academic one? I mean, we're not doing that for any other word. When I use words like "time" or "gravity" in basically any day-to-day setting, I'm obviously using the colloquial meaning, not the strict academic definition a physicist might use. If you change the colloquial meaning of the word racism, you're effectively robbing people of a powerful word to call out prejudice. Seems like a recipe to get people mad at each other. Wouldn't it be easier and far more effective to instead use a completely new term to describe the combination of racial prejudice + power structures?
Ngl, it does feel a bit like this is a losing battle. Like, I'm pretty sure my mom will never understand this. Aren't we kinda pushing many potential leftists away with semantics like these?
I don't have a point, I'm asking questions to understand this better. I'm old, white and not american.