So one of the reasons I decided to start writing up this social justice 101 series is because of the word racism. In the dictionary, racism is defined as “Prejudice or discrimination directed against someone of a different race based on such a belief.” However within social justice and sociological circles it is understood that that is not really how racism works, and that racism is a much more insidious and deep-rooted thing than that. What many people term “racism” (or reverse-racism) is extremely different from the sociological concept of racism, or what minorities experience as racism. Calling them by the same name is demeaning to the experience that minorities have of real racism.
What most people term racism, and what the definition above provides could better be called prejudice or discrimination. Racism as minorities experience it and as it is understood in most social justice circles is a systematic kind of oppression. When we use racism as a term in social justice conversations, it is impossible to be racist against white people (at least in the US). Racism as minorities experience it is the lack of privilege that every minority person has by dint of being a minority. White people as a whole are born into this world with privileges: they are considered more trustworthy, they are far more likely to have connections and money, they are more likely to be born into a better neighborhood, teachers treat them differently, they are not affected by stereotype threat, and their families have not had to struggle to get out of the poverty caused by slavery. Racism is all of those entrenched things that make it easier for whites than for anyone other race in our society.
These include overt bias and prejudice. But these also include things like the prejudice against AAVE, things like the fact that neighborhoods that are primarily black quickly lose funding for schools, things like the fact that tests and measurements of success are often subtly biased against people of color, things like the disproportionate number of people of color in prison or the unequal treatment of people of color at the hands of law enforcement, things like the differences in health care access or diagnosis between people of color and white people, things like the expectation of black bodies to be public property, things like accusing hip hop of being sexist but ignoring sexism in predominantly white music…all of these things are things that white individuals will never experience in the same way.
These same arguments are relevant to terms like sexism, homophobia, cissexism, mental health stigma, ableism…any of those terms. Each of these is a systematic oppression and until the oppressed have enough power to systematically oppress the other group, the terms will never make sense the other way around.
For a more in-depth explanation see here: http://urbanviewsweekly.com/2013/02/26/what-is-racism/
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Reblogged this on Krantzstoned.
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What many people term “racism” (or reverse-racism) is extremely different from the sociological concept of racism, or what minorities experience as racism. Calling them by the same name is demeaning to the experience that minorities have of real racism.
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This to me sounds more like elitist talk than actual. The understanding of the definition may be different, but it is still the same. People acting on uninformed ideals of reality based on what they presume to be a race, which takes many, many forms.
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When we use racism as a term in social justice conversations, it is impossible to be racist against white people (at least in the US)
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In some understandings of yin and yang, it is speaking to that one always has the other. But it sprang to my mind as an example of how things can turn about. Say for example there is a race put down by another. Then say an individual from this race walks amongst the first, do you think there might be racism in how this individual is treated in such a community? I believe that not from all, nor in all cases would this be true, but that it is certainly plausible. It is somewhat akin to how a child raised by an abusive parent does not imply that the child is abusive, but neither would it surprise me to see that child abusive to a younger sibling or even their children. Not to say there is inherent superiority but more to speak to the power dynamics you painted above.
I would not say you are wrong to speak so of racism of whites, but at the same time I would personally be wary. Particularly with my experiences in life.
otherwise, *applause*
I know the power in and of an individual, but also of the lull of a society and the body politic.
racism is mean