Reverse Racism

[Her]

I only used the word "reverse" in the topic because it is a concept occasionally floated around in discussions of white people & racism. I hold no particular feelings about it.

 

[Nah]

I should say that I wasn't actually confused by the thread title (I knew exactly what the topic was about when I clicked on it), or that it shouldn't have been titled that, I'm just expanding on my first post basically.

 

[SingSongBirdy]

Reverse Racism exists but not the term. Its just racism to be honest, yep including white. Hate is hate is the same no matter how you paint it.

 

[Sopheria]

I agree with Kanzler. This could easily happen in a neighbourhood where black people are the majority, and there's that lone little white boy that everybody messes with. Sounds silly but yes, it happens.

It doesn't sound silly at all, and yea, it happens all the time, I've seen it countless times -_-

I don't see the logic behind referring to the idea of reverse racism as just racism, and not reverse racism. What's so bad about acknowledging that reverse racism is just a type of racism? We don't say let's not call black people "black people" because people are people.

The Mirriam-Webster definition of racism:

"the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.

"prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."

There's nothing in the definition of the word that would make "reverse" an applicable adjective. It doesn't specify racism as being directed in any particular direction, so adding "reverse" doesn't make sense and is an invalid use of the English language at best, and semantically harmful at worst because it redefines the word racism (sans qualifiers) to strictly mean white-on-black racism and consequently sneaks in the implication that somehow white-on-black racism is "worse" or "different" than any other kind of racism, and it's not. Viewing races as somehow being "different kinds of people" and treating them differently as a result is the actual problem with racism, not the particulars of the races involved.

 

[Kanzler]

The Mirriam-Webster definition of racism:

"the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.

"prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."

There's nothing in the definition of the word that would make "reverse" an applicable adjective. It doesn't specify racism as being directed in any particular direction, so adding "reverse" doesn't make sense and is an invalid use of the English language at best, and semantically harmful at worst because it redefines the word racism (sans qualifiers) to strictly mean white-on-black racism and consequently sneaks in the implication that somehow white-on-black racism is "worse" or "different" than any other kind of racism, and it's not. Viewing races as somehow being "different kinds of people" and treating them differently as a result is the actual problem with racism, not the particulars of the races involved.

Yeah, there's no sense of direction in the dictionary, everyday definition. But there are people who assert that racism involves the interaction between a dominant and marginalized race, and I acknowledge that most people wouldn't think of racism in this way. Under this conception of racism, "reverse racism" would make sense.

 

[Pokemon Game Fan]

I definitely believe this exists, however like the majority - I'd call it racism, plain and simple.

As someone who doesn't truly believe race exists outside of genetic species (we are homo-sapiens. The idea of race is a societal creation that we as people came up with.) I think racism as a whole is a crazy concept in so many ways. In both that actual racists exist despite us all being humans and people thinking everyone is racist for everything. Black isn't a race, neither is white.

 

[Tiliath]

As mentioned by other users, this is plain and simple racism. The real problem isn't the battle of the semantics, but that we are still hung up on racism. It's unfortunate, but it's just not going to go away. Being hung up on terminology, definitions, meanings, labels, etc does not help and only incites further incidents.

The only way racism doesn't exist is if humanity doesn't exist. It's about time we got over all the hyper sensitivity and grew up.