All ethnic groups exhibit substantial amounts of racial discrimination. It’s always been that way and it’s largely tolerated throughout the world. It only becomes “racism” when white people do it because we must constantly remind ourselves of our shame.
When I grew up, racism was usually referring to black (or non-white) suppression by whites. It would have been ridiculous to suggest the opposite even existed, at least in the US.
Then the pendulum swung the other way, and those who used to enjoy the upper hand became the downtrodden in some cases, and vice-versa. The original term no longer applied, so “reverse” was prepended to clarify.
I’ve spoken with people who assert that racism is a matter of social institutions, and doesn’t really have anything to do with any individual’s personal feelings. A black guy may hate white people, but if they’re both living in a society that consistently favors white people, the only way the black guy could be “racist” would be if he were perpetuating the social biases against black people. A hatred of white people in this understanding isn’t any kind of racism at all, reversed or otherwise.
This is pretty much the only context I’ve ever encountered the term–in affirmative action situations.
I think it is quite appropriate in the context and meaning of a “repeated versing of racial inequality in dearth and in iniquity of the privileged race.”
I think it is quite appropriate in the context and meaning of a “repeated versing of racial inequality in dearth and in iniquity of the socially privileged.” I think a distinction is to be made as this is not racism but the reverse of racism in the levelling effect of artificial policies towards integration and social equality. A necessary step for all mature democracies.
(with a history of amending and letting the slave class attain full citizenship in the republic.)
“Reverse Racism”, I also think is more of a social and economic stratus term, in context, rather than a true racial term. It’s when racism is at odds with status and money.
No, it’s not stupid. It is a recognition that the word ‘racism’ has a meaning that has been appropriated to mean something about white supremacists. When African-americans complain about racism, they don’t say ‘white racism against blacks,’ they say racism. The phrase should, perhaps, be given a hyphen to clarify that it is meant to indicate ‘racism used to indicate that it is a reversal of the accepted sense.’
Best wishes,
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Same here, at least when it’s used in certain contexts where one situation is the stereotype. And yet… it still sets off alarm bells, since it is overwhelmingly used by jerks. The same kind of people who say “I don’t care if you’re white, black or purple” before saying something unquestionably racist.
As has been mentioned above, “racism” is the term traditionally applied to white people holding minorities (mostly black people) down through laws and policies which have the veneer of legality. When the laws are phrased such that an artificial advantage is conferred on the formerly repressed minorities, and members of the majority race are discriminated against (affirmative action, quotas and so on) that may still be called “racism,” but not in any traditional understanding of the term. The act of preferentially giving one race an advantage over other races, solely due to their membership in a racial category is wrong, and should be avoided whenever possible.
The injustice is obvious. For many years in this country, blacks were legally held to a subservient condition, through slavery, Jim Crow laws and other legal policies promulgated by the government. The fact is the ones in control were, for the most part, white men of european extraction. It does not follow that all white people were given the advantage. Women were not treated equally with men in many areas, and did not get the right to vote until after slavery had been ended for decades, and blacks given that right. In some respects they are still treated as inferiors, even if they are white.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many immigrants from Europe (Irish, Italian, Polish, to name a few) were systematically discriminated against by the laws in place at the time. If all white people were being given preferential treatment over blacks and other racial minorities, why were these laws being enforced, or policies allowed to continue? Asians, as a group, were also systematically discriminated against by long-entrenched policies in this country, and, while they may be a different racial category that the dominant white policy-makers, they certainly did not belong to the black race.
Today, there are regulations and policies in place which confer advantages on certain people solely due to their membership in a specific racial category. These policies are not intended to level the playing field or right an historical wrong, but, it seems, to “get back” at the groups who are percieved to have been the beneficiaries of prior discriminatory practices.
As the descendant of immigrants who came to this country in the 1920’s, neither I nor any member of my family on either my mother’s or my father’s side ever owned any slaves. My mother was Irish Catholic born in Protestant Northern Ireland during the 20s, when Catholics were legally discriminated against by the laws in that country, even though they were all of the same racial class.
My father’s family came from the islands in the Aegean Sea, and although they were nominally Greek, the area had been fought over for millenia by the the inhabitants of the Greek mainland and the Turkish countries. Those living on the islands had suffered much over the last few centuries, even though they were of the same racial class. They were poor and ignorant when they arrived in America.
Because I am classified, for census purposes, as belonging to the racial category “White,” I have, therefore, been the beneficiary of all the racial discrimination over the last several centuries in this country, and, therefore, must pay with my job, my life and livelihood, to ensure that some over-priveledged racial minority get the job or promotion or admission to a prestigious University or graduate program.
Admittedly most of the minorities who are given these advantages are, in fact, repressed due to decades of institutionalized discrimination, but the advantages are not meted out with that in mind. A scion of a wealthy, educated black family will get the benefit, while a poor, ignorant child of white sharecroppers will not. As the great Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., declaimed in his “I have a dream” speech, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the content of their character but by the color of their skin.”
At least, that’s the way this country has interpreted it.
If discrimination is wrong, it is wrong no matter who benefits from its inherent injustice. If racism is wrong, it is wrong no matter which race is given the upper hand to impose its will on the others. What this country needs is to pass laws enforcing fairness and equal treatment for all, irrespective of their membership in any special class, such as racial minority, national origin, religion or gender.
Wait, isn’t that the way the Constitution reads already?
Well, at one time our constitution defined a slave as “three fifths of a person”.
“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
Mostly, I’ve heard shouts of “reverse racism” applied by good ol’ boy networks and the traditionally “right wing”. The term is wrapped up in politics and nationalism.
Guess if you were a Native American, you didn’t even equal any part of a person. That’s “nativism” of a different stripe.
the way i understand it, reverse racism is discrimination for, rather than against a group. so perhaps a white guy is extra nice to a black, just because. the ‘reverse’ switches it around, so reverse homophobia would be a straight guy walking on eggshells around a gay man and being extra nice to him. for no other reason than the label.
it’s discrimination either way, just in a different direction.
When I here the term “reverse racism,” I always think of that one South Park episode “With Apologies to Jesse Jackson.” (Wiki article contains a link to the video at the bottom).
That’s because, whether right or wrong, to the framers of the Constitution, “…Indians not taxed…” belonged to a sovereign nation within our borders, and therefore, not subject to taxation or representation “apportioned among the several States…according to their respective Numbers…”
In practice, it lead to Native Americans not being treated equally under our Constitution, but the reason was due to the Native Americans not being citizens of our country as long as they were members of an “Indian Nation.” There were plans and policies put in place starting with Washington, soon after our country was established, to “civilize” the Indian population in order to make it easier to assimilate them into our society. In hindsight, we can see how cruel and unjust these policies were, and many at the time were trying to convince our Government to halt the injustices committed against the indigenous population.
I am still convinced that disparate treatment of groups of people due solely to their membership in different racial categories is, a priori, wrong. It matters not who is the beneficiary of the injustice and who suffers. That fact that the Constitution, as originally written, contains passages which promulgated these injustices only shows how the world appeared to the people of that time. Hopefully, we as a society have matured, and the series of Amendments to the Constitution repealing such unjust practices as slavery, and granting ever-more liberal rights to all Citizens and putting in place sanctions against unequal treatment shows that we have attained at least a rudimentary appreciation of our shared humanity.
The practice of passing laws, today, which have as their sole function and Raison d’être to grant special status to one racial category, with concomitant discrimination against members of other racial groups seems to be a throwback to a more barbaric time. Racism is racism, no matter who gets the dirty end of the stick, but in this day and age to intentionally pass racist laws and policies is just wrong. To tell people that their abilities and achievements mean nothing—so that some “quota” may be filled—is injustice, regardless of who the quota or set-aside was engineered to help.