"The Myth of Reverse Racism"

why are the top two topics in spam about racism & feminism

People who say reverse racism exists are silly. :v Anyone can be a racist and anyone can experience racism. As libre said, institutionalized racims is a different form of racism that white people* don't experience as it's nonexistant for them + has been long standing for minority groups for a long time. The latter is more toxic because it's been around for so long and is still prevelant in the work environment/schooling/way of life/etc. That said, I do think people should be free to express that they feel someone is being racist towards them as it's still entirely wrong, but institutionalized is a somewhat different beast.

*white people as in standard white collar white American today. White people have faced institutionalized discrimination in the past (immigrants, Jewish people, etc.) and some of those groups likely still do in certain places today.

 

Does reverse-racism necessarily follow from a predetermined extent of racism? Because I don't think anyone here is arguing that racism towards a majority is anything like racism towards a minority, but if reverse-racism is simply racism against a majority then it definitely is a thing and I don't see how people can say it's not. I have yet to get a clear definition of what reverse-racism actually is, and it seems that people arguing its existence simply disagree or aren't on the same page on what the definition of it is. I think you would be hard-pressed to find any people saying reverse-racism doesn't exist who would also say that racism towards a majority doesn't exist. But at the same time I think people who say it does exist are simply coming from the perspective of racism on the whole, not just institutionalized racism.

Again, racism being discrimination based on race, not talking about to what extent unless specified.

 

This is the first time I've actually seen reverse racism equated exclusively to institutionalized racism. Up until now the many times I've seen it thrown around as justification for why a poc is allowed to be hateful towards a white person, or something to that effect.
Like on KH13, a person said white people can't celebrate Cinco De Mayo because it's not a white person holiday, and when someone said that was racist they replied that reverse racism was a myth

 

From my understanding, reverse racism is discriminatory behavior targeted at the majority (white people). Which, considering racism itself is defined as discriminatory behavior against x group based on race, making that distinction of it being in reverse is unneeded, imo.

 

The term reverse is a distinction that comes from the argument that white people can't be the victims of racism because of their privilege. It's a term coined by the opposition that posits that racism towards white people doesn't exist, and as such needs a separate description because it's a theoretical practice. A person who believes that anybody can be racist would most likely not use the term unless the context was a debate

 

Choose Your Adventure

Spoiler: Wherein Nova Contributes Meaningfully to the Discourse at Hand

The whole "reverse" thing is kinda superfluous but I think the big stink that arises over it is because "racism" can be defined several ways and nobody really stops to check what somebody means when they say it. Institutional racism/sexism and everyday bigotry are both arguable subjects, but they're argued in different ways, and getting them criss-crossed tends to result in things like "the myth of reverse racism"—whether you say it to mean racism is impossible against certain groups or to mean the term itself is silly.

Spoiler: Wherein Nova Says Something Stupid that Totally Derails the Thread

BUMPACARZ

 

I just finished another giant post in another hatokthread so tl;dr the key lies in understanding and hordes of people misinterpreting the difference between institutionalized racism (redirect to libre and Plums' posts earlier in the thread) and personalized racism.

Also, I must say that whenever people say things like this I feel it completely and utterly undermines their argument by the fact that they do not understand the words they are saying nor seem to possess enough knowledge about world situations to know of the moral and ethical implications caused by the fact that many genocides in the past have involved groups of various social standings fighting each other with innocent folks involved in similar situations of social difference. I like to think that the anger has simply been a bit too strong in the coffee this morning, which is understandable, but really.