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Comment by FiloSottile | Hacker News Reader

Not sure if you're missing it, but yeah, reverse racism is not a thing. The concept of racism is meaningful in the historical and societal context of systemic oppression. A black person saying "all white people are bad" is not feeding into and exploiting hundreds of years of prejudice stacked against an under-privileged group.

Edit: a black person in the US, different cultures are different contexts.

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Racism is racism no matter what direction it's pointing. You don't need to have experienced hundred's of years of prejudice to experience racism. Racism is treating someone differently because of their race. It is wrong full stop, no matter the status of the perpetrator or the victim.

This is a valid but narrow definition of racism. It's not really useful when speaking at a cultural level.

Although I agree with you, I understand the parent's point of view. I believe the issue here is one of terminology, i.e. "systemic racism" vs. an instance of racism. So the parent is arguing that you do indeed need to have experienced those years of oppression to experience racism, otherwise its localized racism that ends when you stop talking to that person (vs having no escape from it). To be clear, I'm on the all-racism-is-racism-is-bad side but had a few friends argue the parent's pov

It's really unfortunate to see downvotes for this. The belief in reverse racism in America is pretty widespread and I imagine we'll eventually see people understand what it means to say it doesn't exist.

The rejection of reserve racism isn't a reaction based on anger like "they hurt me first and more so I can hurt them." That's not what this is about. It's about not minimizing the prejudice black people suffer from every day by comparing it to having to send a picture of your black skin to be a mod in the subreddit mentioned above.

It's about understanding that racism is NOT just an instance of prejudice against someone based on color. It's the entire fucking system and culture we have in America that oppresses black people. It's about the system of power and authority that oppresses black people. When we reserve the word racism for this it follows that it's ridiculous to believe in reverse racism. There is no system that oppresses white people in America. It does not exist.

Is it shitty to be treated differently because your skin is white? Of course. It sucks and it's your right to feel hurt by it, but don't call it racism. Prejudice yes, racism no. Why is this distinction important? Again, because the instances of racism that white people complain about simply do not compare to what black people go through. Using the same word for these things minimizes what black people go through every god damn day.

I think you're right and we should just use a different word instead of fighting against the plain meaning. It shouldn't come as a surprise that when it takes 4 paragraphs to explain why the plain meaning of a word isn't how the word's allowed to be used, there will be a lot of people who don't get it.

Is this sarcasm? Because I can give you a couple examples of well documented, savage, systemic oppression of white people.

Are you one of those that thinks history begins in the US 250 years ago?

Even if it did, he's forgetting that US was incredibly racist towards the Irish, and they are as white as they come. Racism is racism, no matter who does it towards whom.

It’s convenient to omit that the Irish were not considered “white” when they were being discriminated against. They were instead considered their own, distinct race. In most contexts, “white” implicitly meant “normal” and anyone you want to discriminate against got their own, separate label (see also the Jews and the Romani). That’s the crux of the problem.

>>It’s convenient to omit that the Irish were not considered “white” when they were being discriminated against.

That wasn't out of convenience, I honestly didn't know that. But yes, it makes sense that these definitions can become arbitrary when there is a need for that. That is the problem.

Ugh, sorry. I shouldn't assume intent like that :(

Actually, no. The Irish were not considered white when they were oppressed. This is one of the key components of white supremacy, the definition of white is absurd and ever changing in order to achieve various political goals.

This is the crux of it and why a lot of people logically follow the middle ground such as All Lives Matter and would do so more of it weren't so viciously attacked. As soon as you get into this messy game of "but they did that to this group" and "those others did that only after this group did that thing", etc you're in a spaghetti mess and there is no way of untangling it.

We're witnessing an entirely new oppressed class of people being created right before our eyes in slow motion. When we realize that as a society, we'll have added another layer of complexity and the cycle will be even more difficult to fix.

The middle ground is not logical. That is fallacious reasoning. It may very well be the the most extreme option is correct. It's not often the case, but you can arrive to those conclusions using non-fallacious reasoning.

I'm not advocating or promoting the middle. What I'm saying is that it is logical to take the position I mentioned in the sense that it's the only way to be fair to everyone. That's because the alternative requires you to undo the passage of time or have perfect knowledge of every detail of history (because if you take shortcuts and generalize you're being unfair to innocent bystanders that were never involved).

Two wrongs don't make a right. And redefining one of those "wrongs" to be right because it's fixing the first wrong is a mess and people rationally (guess that's a better word for you? I'm not referring to logic in the inductive reasoning sense) see the inconsistency.

You need to dig history more before making such statements; also, the concept of racism has nothing to do with any context .

A black person saying "all white people are bad" is a bad thing, but ultimately not a societal problem. The issue is the power dynamic. After years of institutional racism, institutions are racist (shocking!). That's the issue. There are far more white people in power and any one of them being racist has a much wider and more devastating effect on PoC.

I find this statement oddly racist/xenophobic. White people aren't the majority in every country. It seems like you are implying white people are superior to all others, and have control over every country on earth. What if someone from Africa made the same statement, wouldn't that be an issue?

I think it's better to err on the side of disparaging someone based on an immutable characteristic is a bad thing, regardless of who says it.

It's more of a US centric opinion. Obviously I can't speak for other countries. However, if you look at the current leadership of the US it is dominated by white males. That's not a statement of superiority. The fact is PoC have gotten a raw deal in the US for decades. They aren't in positions of power due to the effects of long standing racism.

The civil rights movement was barely a generation away.

To be clear, I'm absolutely not saying whites are better than PoC. I'm saying that people in power in the US are typically white and male due to centuries of racism.

You sound like someone who doesn't run in the same circles as those in power. Let me clue you in: a few are genuinely racist, most arent, and some are racist in a way that 10 years ago wasn't considered racist. They are being pushed into a corner by people like you YELLING at the top of your lungs that they are racist and that the riot mob is coming for them. They look at decades long careers and think "They think I was just handed this?" while you attack them as white supremacists. You demand that the institutions they run be dismantled. Insert baby in bath water, it's all got to go, no compromise. You can't name why they are racist or how you are going to be able to fix it (hell you don't even broach what sort of landscape the new institution would exist in). It's all just vitriol and acrimony from the likes of you, and it's tearing this country apart. Stop it. Get constructive and grow up.

I think it's very, very important to understand that power, not unlike variable scope, is a collection of nested contexts. You could be a member of a dominant ethnic group in a society, but if you are surrounded by a group of armed members of a less-dominant group, in that moment/context, you don't have as much power as they do. If you survive said attack, and the attackers are brought into court, suddenly they would be right back to the system level context where they lack power.

The fact that it's so incredibly easy to poke holes in these theories is, in my opinion, a result of them being created by professional essay writers rather than true social scientists who follow the scientific method and view data as foundational to advancing theory rather than anecdotes.

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