sarahmichigan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sarahmichigan) wrote2007-08-11 09:25 am
sarahmichigan) wrote2007-08-11 09:25 am
Ok, so let's talk about "reverse racism"
This will probably be my last "Blogging Against Racism Week" post. I'm sure I'll post about race and racism again, just not this densely in a given week.
On some of BARW posts this week, some folks expressed 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.
Secondly, though I'm not sure I buy it entirely, I have some affinity with the idea that prejudice on the individual level is a different thing than instititualized racism. 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. 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 have a lot to say about "reverse racism" because I haven't experienced much of it, and all of it has been on the individual racial prejudice level, and none of it has been on an institutionalized racism level.
Incidents in which I think I was a target of racial prejudice:
-One incident in Kalamazoo in which I was called names by young people sitting on a porch. I didn't hear every word they said, so it might not have been racial, but my assumption is that it was.
-One incident in Ypsilanti in which I was called names by young people sitting on a porch. They just called me a bitch, so maybe it had nothing to do with race.
-One incident in Ypsilanti in which some black teenagers asked J. and I what we were doing in "their" neighborhood. Possibly racially motivated, possibly not, as we were walking several blocks from our house and they may just not have seen us around on their street before.
Honestly, that's it. There may have been other incidents in which someone ignored me or didn't want to date me because I was white, but if that's the case, it wasn't overt enough for me to notice. And, to my knowledge, I've never been denied housing or a job because of my skin color or perceived race.
Compare that to the times I have been harassed or rejected for being fat: about 2,000 or more (seriously), if you count dating site rejections and being called names ("Go fatty, pedal that bike faster!") on the street. Or compare that to the times I have received street harassment or the like for being female: several dozens.
At times I have been racially insensitive or prejudiced, even though I'm actively trying not to do this sort of thing. Some examples:
-Talking more "street" when I was around racial minorities.
-On a dating site, rejecting a black man who wanted to be my submissive because the thought of having a black man as a "slave" made me insanely uncomfortable.
-Being extremely watchful and cautious of black men I encounter on the streets when I'm walking alone. To be fair, I tend to feel most young men under about 25 are barely-controlled sociopathic animals, so this is more a sexist thing than a racial one.
-Occasionally appropriating pieces of Native American culture in less-than-sensitive ways.
-Assuming that racial minorities will be grateful and positively-disposed to me because I'm exploring their music, religion, language, or culture in some way.
-Being surprised that black people eat Chinese takeout and like to go fishing.
I've also witnessed a fair amount of racial prejudice and even some institutionalized racism:
-Working for a boss who wouldn't hire black sales agents because he was afraid they would intimidate the people in his market. It apparently didn't occur to him that he could hire black agents and send them to middle class and affluent black communities.
-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.
-Being told by a white neighbor that she was glad a white family had moved in next door.
-Dozens of instances of racial slurs and stereotypes used in conversation by my in-laws.
-Witnessing co-workers turning instantly prejudiced and hateful toward arabic people directly after 9/11.
-Witnessing the poverty of Pottawatomi Indians near where I grew up, and then institutionalized racism against them when they wanted to start a casino and attempt to improve their lot in life, even though white Catholics in the area had been running bingo for decades.
I can imagine some situations in which white people might feel very disadvantaged and even disempowered; I've heard of white teenagers being harassed in high schools with a majority racial minority population, and I can't imagine they feel very privileged by their white skin in that sort of situation. But on the whole, as I've said, I have experienced very little racial prejudice against me on the personal level, and none on the institutional level. If "reverse racism" is some huge problem, it's not happening in my world.
On some of BARW posts this week, some folks expressed 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.
Secondly, though I'm not sure I buy it entirely, I have some affinity with the idea that prejudice on the individual level is a different thing than instititualized racism. 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. 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 have a lot to say about "reverse racism" because I haven't experienced much of it, and all of it has been on the individual racial prejudice level, and none of it has been on an institutionalized racism level.
Incidents in which I think I was a target of racial prejudice:
-One incident in Kalamazoo in which I was called names by young people sitting on a porch. I didn't hear every word they said, so it might not have been racial, but my assumption is that it was.
-One incident in Ypsilanti in which I was called names by young people sitting on a porch. They just called me a bitch, so maybe it had nothing to do with race.
-One incident in Ypsilanti in which some black teenagers asked J. and I what we were doing in "their" neighborhood. Possibly racially motivated, possibly not, as we were walking several blocks from our house and they may just not have seen us around on their street before.
Honestly, that's it. There may have been other incidents in which someone ignored me or didn't want to date me because I was white, but if that's the case, it wasn't overt enough for me to notice. And, to my knowledge, I've never been denied housing or a job because of my skin color or perceived race.
Compare that to the times I have been harassed or rejected for being fat: about 2,000 or more (seriously), if you count dating site rejections and being called names ("Go fatty, pedal that bike faster!") on the street. Or compare that to the times I have received street harassment or the like for being female: several dozens.
At times I have been racially insensitive or prejudiced, even though I'm actively trying not to do this sort of thing. Some examples:
-Talking more "street" when I was around racial minorities.
-On a dating site, rejecting a black man who wanted to be my submissive because the thought of having a black man as a "slave" made me insanely uncomfortable.
-Being extremely watchful and cautious of black men I encounter on the streets when I'm walking alone. To be fair, I tend to feel most young men under about 25 are barely-controlled sociopathic animals, so this is more a sexist thing than a racial one.
-Occasionally appropriating pieces of Native American culture in less-than-sensitive ways.
-Assuming that racial minorities will be grateful and positively-disposed to me because I'm exploring their music, religion, language, or culture in some way.
-Being surprised that black people eat Chinese takeout and like to go fishing.
I've also witnessed a fair amount of racial prejudice and even some institutionalized racism:
-Working for a boss who wouldn't hire black sales agents because he was afraid they would intimidate the people in his market. It apparently didn't occur to him that he could hire black agents and send them to middle class and affluent black communities.
-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.
-Being told by a white neighbor that she was glad a white family had moved in next door.
-Dozens of instances of racial slurs and stereotypes used in conversation by my in-laws.
-Witnessing co-workers turning instantly prejudiced and hateful toward arabic people directly after 9/11.
-Witnessing the poverty of Pottawatomi Indians near where I grew up, and then institutionalized racism against them when they wanted to start a casino and attempt to improve their lot in life, even though white Catholics in the area had been running bingo for decades.
I can imagine some situations in which white people might feel very disadvantaged and even disempowered; I've heard of white teenagers being harassed in high schools with a majority racial minority population, and I can't imagine they feel very privileged by their white skin in that sort of situation. But on the whole, as I've said, I have experienced very little racial prejudice against me on the personal level, and none on the institutional level. If "reverse racism" is some huge problem, it's not happening in my world.
Two Cents
As for not experiencing racism, I'm glad that you give the examples you do because it shows that you are not inclined to view something as racist, even if it might be. It's not the words that make something racist, but the reasons behind the words. Using racist words just makes the racism overt.
Your examples demonstrate my views on race; it's actions and behavior that matter more to me than skin color. If I don't like someone, it's because he's a jerk, not because he's black. Race only enters into it if that someone is treating me poorly because of his experience with white people, real or perceived. Addressing the race issues in society may fix the problems, but is that guy still going to be a jerk to me?
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Or just feeling terribly threatened that "they" will be moving in, and, like Urban Legends, you know someone who knows someone who didn't get into law school or get a job, and in the story, it's very clear it was to let someone black in.
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I've moved from there now and things aren't like that where I am. I think it's slowly falling away from me now... but I'm sad it was implanted in the first place.
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*sigh*
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The "appropriating" culture thing is one I still struggle with, specifically in regards to housing. I would rather live in a diverse neighborhood. However, in all the reading about gentrification, even just one or two white people moving into the neighborhood can start the shift, within 2-3 years, to an all white or majority white neighborhood.
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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.