On this view, minorities can be "prejudiced" but they can't be "racist" because "racist/racism" implies the power and ability to affect someone on a fundamental level, such as denying housing or discrimination in employment hiring. But individual minority members may very well have that sort of power, if not anywhere near as often.
Like I said, I'm not sure I entirely buy into this concept, but it seems a useful distinction that I'm going to use below: racial prejudice vs. institutionalized racism. I don't think it is a useful distinction. Would there be anything of substance to institutional racism (since the 1960s) beyond that it's acceptable for people to be racist in certain circles? That is indeed a problem, but mainly in that it feeds the individual problems.
Working for companies (nearly everywhere I've ever worked) whose percentage of minority employees was vastly smaller than the percentage of minorities in the community generally. I've seen this, too (with black people, anyway -- there are plenty of Indians in programming offices), but I don't think it can be characterised as institutional racism. There are probably a few hiring managers who avoid hiring various minority members, and that's individual racism. The bigger problems are the poverty cycle (an institutional problem, but not racism), and the anti-intellectuallism of young, poor black (mainly male) culture, which probably feed off each other with help from individual racists.
an interest in talking about "reverse racism." To start off, I dislike the term, as it implies there is a normal or expected direction to racism. The expected direction is to be favorable toward your own race, so while I don't think it's appropriate to call black people being racist toward white people "reverse", it is appropriate to call affirmative action implemented by white people "reverse racism" (that doesn't mean I'm opposed to affirmative action -- I'm torn over whether the positive institutional effects are worth institutionalizing racism, and actually abstained on that ballot proposal last year).
While this in an unorthodox use of the term, I think some of the self-destructive elements in young, poor black male culture could appropriately be considered reverse racism, as well.
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Date: 2007-08-11 06:20 pm (UTC)But individual minority members may very well have that sort of power, if not anywhere near as often.
Like I said, I'm not sure I entirely buy into this concept, but it seems a useful distinction that I'm going to use below: racial prejudice vs. institutionalized racism.
I don't think it is a useful distinction. Would there be anything of substance to institutional racism (since the 1960s) beyond that it's acceptable for people to be racist in certain circles? That is indeed a problem, but mainly in that it feeds the individual problems.
Working for companies (nearly everywhere I've ever worked) whose percentage of minority employees was vastly smaller than the percentage of minorities in the community generally.
I've seen this, too (with black people, anyway -- there are plenty of Indians in programming offices), but I don't think it can be characterised as institutional racism. There are probably a few hiring managers who avoid hiring various minority members, and that's individual racism. The bigger problems are the poverty cycle (an institutional problem, but not racism), and the anti-intellectuallism of young, poor black (mainly male) culture, which probably feed off each other with help from individual racists.
an interest in talking about "reverse racism." To start off, I dislike the term, as it implies there is a normal or expected direction to racism.
The expected direction is to be favorable toward your own race, so while I don't think it's appropriate to call black people being racist toward white people "reverse", it is appropriate to call affirmative action implemented by white people "reverse racism" (that doesn't mean I'm opposed to affirmative action -- I'm torn over whether the positive institutional effects are worth institutionalizing racism, and actually abstained on that ballot proposal last year).
While this in an unorthodox use of the term, I think some of the self-destructive elements in young, poor black male culture could appropriately be considered reverse racism, as well.