Why Is Revenge Song a Thing Again
Contrary racism isn't real. No, really.
The "opposite racism" card is ofttimes pulled by white people when people of color phone call out racism and discrimination, or create spaces for themselves (recollect BET) that white people aren't a part of. The impulse behind the opposite racism argument seems to be a desire to prove that people of color don't have it that bad, they're not the only ones that are put at a disadvantage or targeted because of their race. It'southward like the Racism Olympics. And it'southward patently untrue.
It actually all comes down to semantics. At some point, the actual significant of "racism" got mixed up with other aspects of racism ― prejudice, bigotry, ignorance, and and so on. It'south true: White people tin experience prejudice from black people and other non-whites. Black people can take ignorant, backwards ideas about white people, as well as other not-white races. No one is trying to deny that. Only racism is far more complex.
Before you cry outrage and send me a nasty email nearly how reverse racist this article is, at-home down. Listen.
This scene from 2014's "Honey White People" breaks down the concept pretty succinctly:
Some people simplify racism as i group not liking another, and recall "racist" and "prejudiced" are interchangeable. But racism is a concept that operates on both an individual and institutional level.
At its cadre, racism is a system in which a dominant race benefits off the oppression of others -- whether they want to or not. Nosotros don't live in a lodge where every racial grouping has equal ability, status, and opportunity. Yes, white people all over the world and throughout history have experienced atrocities like slavery and persecution. Simply in the very specific context of American history, white people have non been enslaved, colonized, or forced to segregate on the calibration that black people accept. They do not face housing or job discrimination, police brutality, poverty, or incarceration at the level that blackness people do. This is non to say that they do non experience things like poverty and police brutality at all. But again, non on the aforementioned scale -- not even close. That is the reality of racism.
What'south astounding virtually the reverse racism argument is the way in which information technology reveals some racists' deep demand to deny the thought of having any privilege. Rather than acknowledging the realities of how people of color deal with racism, white racists do mental and hypothetical cartwheels in order to justify these injustices.
There accept been so many explainers on why the concept of reverse racism is inherently wrong, so many breakdowns, merely perhaps some other way to tackle this discussion is to accost some of the principal topics and issues that get called out equally contrary racism. Here are four mutual arguments that accept no merit:
1. Affirmative Action takes jobs and scholarships away from white people.
The affirmative action contend has been raging for decades, with many people arguing that it'southward a prime example of reverse racism. They believe deserving white students are discriminated confronting while academically unqualified students are given highly coveted higher or company positions ― just because they happen to tick the "ethnic minority" box. This statement ignores the fact that affirmative action did not come out of nowhere ― at that place was a need for a system that would accost the decades of underrepresentation of people of color both academically and in the job world.
Affirmative action does not favor people of color over whites, merely ensures that they are considered equally. Even now, white college students are 40% more likely to get private scholarships than minorities, and although 62% of college students in America are white, these students receive 69% of all private scholarships. Someone with a "white sounding" name is fifty% more likely to become a task call up than a person with an "ethnic" sounding name, according to a 2003 study. Affirmative action doesn't take anything away from anyone. It levels the playing field.
ii. White civilisation can be appropriated, also.
Recently, I wrote an commodity explaining why it's problematic for white women to wear blackness hairstyles. I got hundreds of messages from aroused people asking, "Well, what about black women straightening their pilus or dyeing their hair blonde?" First of all ― at that place are, gasp, black people in the world with naturally blonde hair and bluish optics. But that'due south besides the point. The need to flip the script when it comes to cultural cribbing is incorrect because it willfully removes context and history from the equation. Black people conforming to white or Western standards of beauty is the product of a need to survive in a society in which wearing hair in its natural state can cost black men and women their jobs and even their educations.
"And so is it appropriation if black people use math or fly in airplanes?" No. 😒 . Aspects of modern civilisation are non hallmarks of white culture, and anyone who thinks they are has a skewed vision of the world.
3. Black-on-white offense is proof that black people just hate all whites!
When conversations about police brutality or detest crimes come upward, there are some racists who are quick to bespeak out the rate of black-on-white crime, and fence that these instances are racially motivated attacks against white people ― in other words, hate crimes. It'south simply non true.
According to the FBI's most recent 2011 study on homicide, 83 pct of white murder victims were killed by fellow whites, while but 14 percent of white victims were murdered by blacks. Just beyond numbers, black-on-white crime is a social problem ― it isn't systemic. More than 1oo unarmed black people were killed by police in 2014. Guilty or non, this number of deaths in comparison to how many white people were killed is staggering.
iv. BET, Black Girls Rock and Black History Month exclude white people. How racist!!
Things like Black History Calendar month, BET, and Blackness Girls Rock are not "reverse racist" against white people, they're not examples of a double standard in which White History Month, The White Entertainment Channel, and White Girls Rock would be considered offensive. "Why isn't there a White History Month?" you ask? To repeat a very true platitude ― all history is white history. Most black children in America will learn they are descended from slaves earlier they larn they are descended from ancient African civilizations.
These institutions are created out of necessity, and the argument that they should not be speaks to the pervasiveness of white privilege. Donald Trump actually took issue with the evidence "Black-ish," complaining that the evidence was racist because, "Tin yous imagine the furor of a prove, "Whiteish"! Racism at highest level?" Aye, Mr. Trump, ane of the few black family sitcoms on Tv set, produced and written by a black person, playfully dismantling racial stereotypes and striving to include everyone in the conversation, is "racism at its highest level." Or peradventure it'due south just long overdue?
If you recall about it, reverse racism is actually kinda swell. Considering if it did exist, information technology would mean we lived in a club in which all racial groups have an equal amount of ability. But we don't. So to those who cry "reverse racism" when a show like "Black-ish" premieres or President Obama uses the N-word -- please, only stop.
CORRECTIONS: An before version of this story cited an unrelated Pew Enquiry Report; the correct study has been included. The engagement of the release of "Dearest White People" was also listed incorrectly as 2013. The story has been updated to clarify a previous reference to white people having never been enslaved every bit existence limited to American history.
Besides on Huffpost:
2013: The Year In Cultural Cribbing
Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reverse-racism-isnt-a-thing_n_55d60a91e4b07addcb45da97
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