I know this diary has been blogged before, but I wanted to put pen to paper and write about this topic once again -- in case some newbies had missed it, or some old timers, in the heat of primary season, have forgotten.
Reverse racism is an insidious and bullshit ideological framework that has worked its way into the white psyche after hundreds of years of dominance in the United States. The concept, in and of itself, is absolutely ludicrous. It is impossible for a subordinate group of people to make a claim on power that they do not have. It is also absolutely impossible for the dominant group to feel the "racist" effects of prejudiced language thrown their way, because they have never been on the opposite end of the power structure.
I packed a lot of bullshit into that paragraph, so let me unpack that a little bit slower.
The Ideological Framework of Reverse Racism
The belief in reverse racism is just a small part of the package set that is called "colorblindness". Colorblindness is a framework that whites have deluded themselves into in the era after out and open racism and bigotry became stigmatized. Since then, we whites have had to shift ideological frames from pretty much the ideology of Jim Crow and segregation, to a new frame that allowed us to both maintain their dominant status and come into compliance with the new normal.
To settle the cognitive dissonance, whites must level the playing field in their own minds. We must delude ourselves into thinking that all races are equal in the modern era. While this is observably false, many whites are still fooled into thinking that this fact remains true: Because out and open racism has "disappeared", because "they" have "their president", because "they got their civil rights"; racism is over. The social statistics, on the other hand, prove those assumptions completely and totally false (as is blogged here every day, can we finally say this is common knowledge now?)
Reverse racism is an outgrowth of colorblindness. Think about it -- because all races are equal, then racism must cut both ways!
But back up there, eager white person, lets dive a bit deeper into that.
What is racism again?
That question really goes at the heart of the matter doesn't it. Those that believe in colorblind ideology have narrowed their definitions of racism to a point where nothing looks like racism. Or, they have conveniently confused racism with a set of other terms like hepshiba explained in this kickass 2010 diary Why theres no such thing as Reverse Racism:
Prejudice is an irrational feeling of dislike for a person or group of persons, usually based on stereotype. Virtually everyone feels some sort of prejudice, whether it's for an ethnic group, or for a religious group, or for a type of person like blondes or fat people or tall people. The important thing is they just don't like them -- in short, prejudice is a feeling, a belief. You can be prejudiced, but still be a fair person if you're careful not to act on your irrational dislike.
Discrimination takes place the moment a person acts on prejudice. This describes those moments when one individual decides not to give another individual a job because of, say, their race or their religious orientation. Or even because of their looks (there's a lot of hiring discrimination against "unattractive" women, for example). You can discriminate, individually, against any person or group, if you're in a position of power over the person you want to discriminate against. White people can discriminate against black people, and black people can discriminate against white people if, for example, one is the interviewer and the other is the person being interviewed.
Racism, however, describes patterns of discrimination that are institutionalized as "normal" throughout an entire culture. It's based on an ideological belief that one "race" is somehow better than another "race". It's not one person discriminating at this point, but a whole population operating in a social structure that actually makes it difficult for a person not to discriminate.
I strong recommend all kossacks
read the entire diary.
Because it goes, in depth, into the reasons why it is impossible for a person of color to be racist. The power structure, the societal institutions, history and context go against everything colorblind true-believers suppose. Whites can be racist because they have all of US history backing them up. People of color, on the other hand, do not have the power structure backing them. They can be prejudiced, they can discriminate, but the cannot be racist. Its just not the way the dominant/subordinate group structure here in the US works. There is no systemic power backing people of color, therefore their racism doesn't have the "bite" that white racism does.
I grew up poor. I didn't own slaves. I ain't privileged.
You most likely did, and nobody is denying the power of that experience by acknowledging the fact that white privilege exists, and that the level racial playing field theory is complete myth. You may have grown up a pauper with nothing, but racism exists outside of class. Yes, intersectionality (the link between social issues) does exist, meaning that racism and classism have some common roots, but also exist outside of and independently of each other. Just because you grew up poor does not mean that you grew up without white privilege.
I lived this in my own life. I grew up poor, in an apartment complex. We had gangs, drugs, violence. All my clothes were hand me downs or goodwill bought, our christmases were donated etc etc. But there were invisible privileges afforded to me along the way.
I grew up in a majority Mexican neighborhood. Many of my friends got arrested early. Go figure most of them were brown.
Again, the high school I went to was 80% Mexican. My grades were usually inflated by two compared to others in class. I know I wasn't the smartest.
Never once was I called "at risk". Funny how a lot of those around me were.
Etc etc.
Look, I am white, a lot of my own privilege is invisible to me. But I know its there. I got advantages that my brown peers did not. And you did too.
Which leads me to my last point
Whites can never feel real racism.
They can't. They can feel prejudice and discrimination, sure, but real racism is a claim on one directional power. The power has never flowed against whites, so racism can never be felt the same way by white people. That is not to say that prejudice and discrimination don't hurt and aren't wrong, of course they do and of course it is, but racism just isn't something that will ever be in the white experience -- or, not any time in the near future anyway.
As hepshiba put it in the diary
"Reverse Racism" would only describe a society in which all the rules and roles were turned upside down. That has not happened in the U.S., however much white right wing ideologues want to complain that they're being victimized by the few points of equality that minorities and women have managed to claim. White people who complain about "Reverse Racism" are actually complaining about being denied their privileges, rather than being denied their rights. They feel entitled to be hired and not to be discriminated against, even though the norm is white people discriminating against blacks. If, in a rare instance, a black employer discriminates against a white job applicant, that's not "reverse" anything -- it's simple discrimination. It's to be condemned on principle, but it's not evidence of some systematic program by which whites are being deprived of their rights.
That bears repeating:
White people who complain about "Reverse Racism" are actually complaining about being denied their privileges, rather than being denied their rights.
Precisely. Because this power has been granted to us for so long, it feels like racism to take it away.
my two cents