From Pulpit To Public Square

One idea being invoked by Republican presidential candidates is that “reverse racism is racism.” I wish people with degrees from Harvard and Yale had enough common sense to distinguish between racism as a social construct and prejudice as a personal attitude. Black and brown people can exhibit prejudicial views toward white peoples based upon their historic experiences of social discrimination, state sanctioned racialized violence, and political disenfranchisement even in areas where those groups are a majority of the population. Black and brown people may harbor resentment, anger, and even hatred of some white people rooted in over 400 years of what Aldon Morris calls “tri-dimensional oppression” in The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement.”

What black and brown people do not possess is the control over the political and economic apparatus of American society to impose and enforce a racialized society.

Teaching the truth about American history that includes the truth about black enslavement and black achievement is certainly not reverse racism. Insisting on the intersectionality of race, class, gender, and history (Critical Race Theory) is not reverse racism. It is a path to an enlightened mind and an informed society. It is racism that uses political power and the threatened use of force and violence to suppress the pursuit of the truth about our nation’s past. The simple fact that there is no such thing as “black privilege” should inform this discussion.

In a racialized society, members of the group that has positioned itself in places of power have an advantage simply by being members of that group. They have not earned or achieved anything not attainable by persons outside that group. Their sole advantage comes from being born white in American society. I have seen that happen hundreds of times before.

I believe this foolish notion of reverse racism is an invention of and by people who feel that their privilege is slipping away as demographics shift in this country. Anything that causes them to feel uncomfortable or not in total control must be, in their view an act of reverse racism. They are not being lynched. Their voting rights are not being challenged. Their access to farm loans is not being denied. Their Medicare and Medicaid benefits are not being threatened.

What is happening to these people that they view as reverse racism? Is it all about affirmative action programs designed to address centuries of systemic and intentional discrimination? When you cannot win on a fully equal playing field, you imply that you are the victim of reverse racism. We cheapen ourselves as a nation when we embrace this failure to distinguish between prejudice — which we all might harbor — and racism that requires power and privilege to create and preserve; a power not all Americans possess!