Racism is [View all]

[BainsBane]

Many things, but one of its most insidious manifestations is when white people claim victimhood because of the color of their skin.

My ancestors were not subject to slavery; they have not been subjected to lynching, Jim Crow, and systematic voter disenfranchisement. Therefore my race, the white race, is not a victim of racism. Someone says something you don't like about white people, you may take offense. You may have every right to be angry, but you are not the victim of racism. Your whiteness, my whiteness, makes us privileged. I bear that racial privilege despite growing up on welfare. While disadvantaged economically, I benefited from white privilege. Having white skin does not make us victims. To pretend it does is in fact a manifestation of racism, one that trivializes the profound inequality that has structured this nation since its foundation and continues to result in the second-class citizenship, even death. When a white person pretends that their discomfort is in any way comparable to that, they trivialize racism, its violence and power.

The notion of racism against whites emerged in reaction to the Civil Rights movement and Affirmative Action. It has its origins in extremist, White Power groups that promoted that ideology, which then filtered into the right-wing media and now has gone mainstream among "progressives," whose use of that concept has sullied the word "progressive." It is part of a backlash against growing racial inclusion and the ascendancy of African Americans to positions like the presidency. Such rhetoric denies history, denies socio-cultural reality, and works to maintain the racist system of inequality it pretends to be a victim of.