mynameisbob84 said:
I would argue that the difference between racism and reverse racism is about equal to the difference between misogyny and misandry. They all come from a place of hatred and ignorance and they're all fucked up things we'd be better off without but just as you can't argue that men face the same discrimination and struggles that women do, you can't really argue that white people face the same discrimination and struggles that minorities do - hence the differing words that are applied to what might scan as the same thing, but really aren't. Racism and misogyny are institutional, reverse racism and misandry aren't. :twocents-02cents:
I agree with most of what you said, but this brings up a point:
If racism is born of hatred, can a person be racist without actually hating the group in question? I've told "black jokes" before, but it's not because I hate them. I've also told white jokes, American jokes, and I used to tell Catholic jokes when I was Catholic. And yet, I've been talked to about how "that's racist!" to tell a black joke, even though I'm not doing it because I hate blacks. I'm doing it to laugh at the stereotypes.
I look at a group of people, I'm going to apply the stereotypes, just because I have to put things in context. (I mean any group, jocks, geeks, blacks, Baptists, French people, and so on) I mean, stereotypes mostly exist because so many people in a group will fit that stereotype. But any one person from that group talks to me on his/her own, I forget that the stereotypes exist, and make my opinion of that person based on his/her interactions with me, and how I observe that person interacting with others.
BTW- 95% of the prison population are not bad people. They got caught in the ghetto-loop (The parents aren't educated, so can't get a good job. Kids have to help pay the bills, can't focus on education, so they can't get a good job when they become adults. That's the ghetto loop.). Or they got caught with a bit of drugs. Or they took their friend on an errand, not knowing that the friend was carrying drugs. Or something else to do with the drug war and zero-tolerance and minimum-sentencing. Thus, I don't think of black people as "bad people", even though a lot of them have been in prison at one point or another.
As far as being discriminated against, I'm one of the "lucky" ones. I had such a shitty childhood that it puts me in the position of being a very privileged adult. Being female, I can take advantage of hundreds of government programs that are only for women, and have an easier time getting governmental assistance. Being a white woman, I'm always assumed to be telling the truth (luckily, I'm mostly honest), and people are usually falling over themselves to help me (and sometimes each other). Being a former foster child, there were gobs and gobs of scholarships available to me when I went to college. Having a high IQ and being really good at taking tests meant that I never even touched that money, I got free academic tuition for my Bachelors.
But I have seen other people be discriminated against for whatever reason. Seen men get denied jobs because "we have enough men working here" (strangely enough, at a workplace where roughly 3/4ths of the employees were women...). Seen white people get stared out of a building because it was mostly black (I was hanging out with a black friend). Went to one place where I felt very uncomfortable because I was the only straight person in the building (though no one actually did anything to discriminate against me; again, there with a friend). Whenever a group of people who share a characteristic get together, anyone who doesn't share that particular characteristic feels, quite rightly, like a "fish out of water".
Now, the US, and "society", being "all for white people". No. Just no. Yes, there is still a lot of racism in the US. These days, the racist white people are either very out of touch with reality, to the point where they aren't a threat, or the old people who grew up in a time when racism was the way of life. But to say that the entire society of the US is racist and white people have all the power is to ignore the fact that white people are currently only 40ish percent of the population any more, and 75% of them have no issue with minorities in general, while 80% of them have no issue with blacks specifically. Most of the racism against blacks these days comes from Hispanics. And vice-versa. If someone says or does something racist, there are VERY few people cheering them on for it. UNLESS they're being racist against white people. So if anything, current society favors minorities!
And yes, I will call them "blacks", because those who are racists against blacks have an issue with anyone who has black skin, whether or not that person is American! I went to high school with a black girl from Cameroon. She was not American. Therefore, she is not an African American. She is an African. But just saying that doesn't say that she's black, because there are white Africans too! "African American" is not a global race, it's a subset of a larger race, which there is no politically correct word for. Black is the closest I can come, because Negro was tainted. Maybe "Native Africans"? But the ones who were born in America are native to America anymore. So fuck it!
Stupid politically correct bullshit.
