Yeah, Reverse Racism is NOT a Thing

Despite what Nikki Haley seems to think, there’s a lot of racism out there, even in the United States. It was, unfortunately, built on the backs of oppressed peoples. That includes African slaves brought by force, Chinese immigrants who worked and died in horrendous conditions to build railways, and the Indigenous peoples who were robbed of their lands.

One of the biggest offences and negations of North America’s racist past, present, and future is the concept of reverse racism. Not only is this not a real thing, the very phrase itself is grammatical word salad that makes no sense, much like the people who subscribe to the idea.

What the Hell is Reverse Racism?

Look, I’m a super white guy who lives in Canada and I have no business throwing shade at the United States without acknowledging our own racial issues. There is a long history of bigotry and racism here, particularly directed at the Indigenous peoples of these lands.

As such, I know a few White people who talk about reverse racism all too often. What’s interesting about the term is that it seems to be a huge indicator of actual racists. Or at least complete idiots. Any White person who believes in reverse racism has likely used the N-word with a hard R, if you know what I mean.

Reverse racism is the idea that there are people who are racist against White people. It’s the concept that White people are now suffering in a racist society that is rigged against them due to the color of their skin. Naturally, those who believe in it are not happy about it.

To be fair, you can be bigoted against White people and any discrimination directed at a person or persons due to the color of their skin is, without question, wrong. That being said, busting out the term racism to describe it shows a lack of understanding of the word.

Not a Thing

For there to be racism, by definition there has to be some sort of systemic issue in place. That would require racist policies to be enacted at every level of government and the results to be pervasive throughout society, going right down to its very foundations.

In North America, White people as a whole have never suffered under such conditions. At no point of the history of the United States or Canada have White people been subjected to systemic racism. Not now, not then, not ever. I don’t know Mexico’s history particularly well so I can’t speak for them, but I highly doubt it’s ever been an issue there for White people.

What some White people identify as reverse racism is actually a loss of power. As more civil rights battles were won and other ethnicities were treated more fairly, white people started losing some of their control over…well, everything. But that’s not actually a problem.

White people, particularly White, straight men, still make up most government positions at the federal, provincial/state, and municipal levels. On top of that, White people are overwhelmingly make up the majority of CEOs and executive level positions of most companies.

Calm Down, Please

Basically, the United States had one Black president and everyone lost their damn minds. He was, and still is, Black but basically everyone around him was White. Still, the sight of Barack Obama as the President of the United States was like ten-gallon bucket of lighter fluid on the reverse racism fire.

Losing one percent of the control over Canada and the United States to non-White people does not constitute racism against White people. For better or worse, White people are still pretty much in charge of everything in these two countries.

And even if White people were subjected to the same types of racism Indigenous and Black people still face today, that wouldn’t be reverse racism. That would literally just be racism. You would just use the term racism to describe it. Do we ever use the term reverse men to describe women? No, because that would be incredibly stupid and pointless.

For the term to make sense, there is an inherent, and likely unintentional, admission of guilt. If you’re a White person using the term reverse racism, you are saying that Black people, Indigenous people, and more have all been subjected to generations of systematic racism. After all, it has to be reversed off something, right?

Oh, reverse sexism isn’t a thing, either. Just to be clear. This is life, not a game of Uno.