When I used to watch Good Times during the 70's, I used to chuckle when Michael Evans, the 'militant midget' as his father James called him, would utter 'Boy is a white racist world' every time his mother Florida or anyone else inside or outside the Evans family called him 'boy'.It was a line with historical truth backing it up. Now we have another pair of white racist words for the new millennium: 'Reverse Racism.'
It's a conservative movement created term that never should have gained legitimacy because it is mind numbingly disingenuous, and flies in the face of logic and historical evidence to the contrary.
It is a term and concept coined by the conservafools to spin the fact that whites throughout history have colluded and repeatedly acted in sometimes violent ways to impede the progress of non-white ethnic groups.Renee over at Womanist Musings has weighed in on this annoying topic along with others on the Net to debunk this conservafool coined term.
Now it's my turn.
First key to understanding where I'm coming from on this subject is a point about racism that peeps should have retained from Sociology 101.
Racism is the systemic denial of rights and benefits by whites against non-whites in all areas of human activity. Those areas of human activity being economics, education, entertainment, law, politics, labor, religion, sex, and war.
In other words, it can be summed up by a simple equation to make it easy for you to remember (or try to ignore) in the future.
racism = prejudice + power
For one group to practice racism against another group they must have MORE POWER than the race targeted with the negative behavior to do so. The only ethnic group that has that kind of power and control are whites. If they didn't think that was the case, why are they and their GOP cohorts hollering we need to 'take our country back' or describing themselves as 'real Americans'?
The attitudes even extend to white marginalized groups. How many times have we heard from the white dominated GLBT leadership that were 'just like you'?
Feminism is so tied to and synonymous with white women that rhetorical skirmishes have erupted amongst feminists because conservative women such as Sarah Palin are claiming the label for themselves, one that women of color long ago either separated or distanced themselves from, or acted as African descended women did and became womanists.And you don't need to be a sheet wearing, stiff arm saluting white supremacist to be a racist. As Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. once stated, "I'm more concerned about the racists wearing Brooks Brothers suits and Gucci pumps than the ones wearing white sheets.'
Many whites are not raving supremacists, but are put in the position of being racism enablers because they are silent when it happens or succumb to peer pressure within their ethnic group to support acts they may personally oppose that are inherently racist. Thanks to unacknowledged white privilege, too many whites either willfully or unwittingly confuse racism with bigotry and prejudice.
Criticism from persons of color calling attention to or talking about the systemic racism they face or the unfairness of the system doesn't add up to 'reverse racism' or the other infuriating conservaterm we hear far too often, 'playing the race card'.
Anyone who believes that fable is wallowing in vanilla flavored privilege or has has been been watching too much Fox News.If you're wondering why 'the Revs' (Revs. Jesse Jackson, Sr. and Al Sharpton) are hated so much by conservatives, it's because they call this crap out on a regular basis.
It's a fact that every ethnic group has various levels of bigotry and prejudice within them. However, it elevates to racism when you take your prejudices, combine them with power (social, political, economic, military) and use it to oppress or retard the progress of a minority ethnic group or individuals in it.
Minority group members do not exist in a world with a level playing field because this world is dominated by 'whiteness', which disproportionately controls all levels of human activity.
Need some examples of that? In terms of the beauty standard, what women are held up as the pinnacle of beauty?
If you look at the ethnicity of Fortune 500 company CEO's, how many of them are POC's?
How many presidents of non-HBCU colleges are POC's?
And out of the 118 people who have been chosen to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, only three* have been POC's.
If you're wondering why I have the asterisk after three SCOTUS POC's, Clarence Thomas is considered an 'honorary white man' by Pat Buchanan and a Oreo-cookie chomping sellout by African-Americans.
Since POC's do not have the collective or systemic power to prevent whites from doing anything that they wish to do in this society due to 'whiteness', or have the recourse to do something about it like whites do, there is no such thing as 'reverse racism'.
We do not live in a society in which white supremacy and whiteness is non-existent, nor are we even light years close to living in a society with an equalized playing field.So at the moment, only whites have the power to be racist and it's why the claim of 'reverse racism' is bogus in the first place.
And it's also why to many people of color, 'reverse racism' will always be white racist words.
