Monday, September 7, 2009

"Reverse Racism"

God damn it, white people. Stop talking about how POC have this huge advantage over you. Equating the baggage that comes with "nigger" and the baggage that comes with "cracker" is comparing apples to rocket ships. Even if white people and POC are equally racist individually, there are still more white people and white people have more money, which means that POC experience far more racism than white people.

Which means their experiences are not equivalent. Any white person who says otherwise is devaluing the completely-justified anger of those who--as a rule--have it harder than they do. And that's just a shitty thing to do.

Seriously. When a POC calls you a nasty name, it isn't the same as when you call them a nasty name. Do you know why? Because POC don't determine how you're treated. POC don't draw the lines around your life determining what you're able and not able to do. POC don't have power over you, which means that they can't ever swing the hammer quite as hard as you can--as hard as you have probably done without even thinking about it.

This is why a gay man calling a straight man a "breeder" isn't as bad as a straight man calling a gay man a "faggot." This is why a woman telling a sexist joke isn't as damaging as a man telling a sexist joke, even though they're both probably committing similar errors of stereotyping and generalizing. They aren't the same because even if the principle is similar... the damage isn't even comparable.

Why is this so fucking hard to understand. I'm so scared that I was this stupid before I started thinking about racism, that I was allowed to be this stupid. I sure hope not.

2 comments:

Lyon said...

Thank you for this. In my experience as a teaching assistant in sociology, this concept is one of the hardest to promote understanding of in the classroom. It requires a shift in thinking from the micro to the macro experience of society and that's a real brain twist, for some far more so than others.

Makarios said...

It's sort of like the homophobes crying, "Why don't we have straight pride days?" Guess what, numpty--every day is straignt pride day in this society.