Reverse Racism is Not Real

Bangladeshi Australian comic Aamer Rahman humorously shows the problem with the idea of “reverse racism.” Sociological research bysociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and colleagues backs up the idea behind his comedy, by showing the paradoxical beliefs held by white people who think they have been the victims of reverse racism: first, that racism is no longer a problem; second, that minorities get special privileges that are unfair, and which disadvantage white people.

Racism is more than just saying something negative about a member of another group. Racism is an institutional process connected to historical social relations. Racism is describes a system of discrimination at school, work, in the media, in politics and through other social institutions.

The false concept of reverse racism ignores these institutional experiences of oppression. When a member of a minority culture voices a negative view of a majority group, this is a stereotype (an prejudiced or exaggerated view of a group), but it does not carry the same institutional power as when a white person does the same thing.

Racism describes institutional processes that are linked to historical social relations. A racist statement by a white person transmits the threat of violence, whether intended or not, because institutional processes ensure minorities are marginalised and punished. Racism is locked to a system of discrimination at school, work, in the media, in politics and through other social institutions. People of colour do not have the same cultural and institutional forces working to their advantage.

Research by sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and colleagues shows that the idea of “reverse racism” is prevalent amongst white people who hold two paradoxical beliefs:

1. Society hasn’t really got a problem with racism;
2. Minorities get special privileges because of their heritage.

Most white people today understand that saying overtly prejudiced things about minorities is not acceptable. In interviews with Bonilla-Silva and colleagues, they will talk about their racist relatives, without thinking of themselves as racist. They will list examples where they’ve had a positive encounter with a person of colour. Yet their personal negative experiences with minorities take on a different meaning. Examples of a positive interaction is held up as an example of a “good” individual. Negative experiences are discussed as an indictment of the entire minority group. So, white people will say things say things like:

“I have, I just have a problem with the discrimination, you’re gonna discriminate against a group and what happened in the past is horrible and it should never happen again, but I also think that to move forward you have to let go of the past and let go of what happened um, you know?”

Reverse racism is an attempt to be ahistorical. White people will evoke this concept when they say they don’t understand why some minorities still talk about racism and colonialism, when other white groups aren’t “allowed” to talk about “racism” that white people experience. For example:

“those that say we should pay them because they were slaves back in the past and yet, how often do you hear about the people who were whites that were slaves and the white that were, ah? Boy, we should get reparations, the Irish should get reparations from the English… “

A common idea underlying the “reverse racism” discourse is that white people today shouldn’t have to pay for the oppression that happened in the past. These white people do not see social relations today as correlated with history, and they do not see modern-day inequality as equivalent to past oppression:

“Me, as [a] white person, I had nothing to do with slavery. You, as a Black person, you never experienced it. It was so long ago I just don’t see how that pertains to what’s happening to the race today, so that’s one thing that I’m just like ‘God, shut up!'”

White people feel disconnected to historical processes because these relations don’t affect their present-day life outcomes. Conversely, whenever they see minorities getting ahead in life, they presume it’s due to “reverse racism” rather than individual merit:

“No, other than I have applied at jobs and been turned down because I was white. Now, I have nothing against the Black person [if he] was qualified better than I was. But when the guy comes into the interview, and I’m off on the side and I can hear them talking, and he can’t even speak English, he doesn’t know how to read a map, and they’re gonna make him a bus driver and hire him over me… I know why he got the job, and I don’t think that’s fair.” 

Bonilla-Silva and colleagues argue that the “reverse racism” narrative is a safe way for white people to air out racist ideals without thinking of themselves as racist. This is also known as “colour blind racism.”

Sociologists have a difficult time teaching White students about social privilege because the social benefits of whiteness are difficult for white people to “see” when they are part of the majority. See my previous post which also has some excellent resources to better understand this phenomena in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.

Learn more

See Rahman’s stand up via Fear of a Brown Planet, a comedy duo also featuring Nazeem Hussain. I’ve seen them live a couple of times. Their comedy deals with political themes (for example Australia’s refugee policies, the Cronulla Riots), but they also have incredibly funny observations about life, family, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica.