You know what phrase I currently dislike more than any other? “Reverse racism.” This phrase is meaningless. There is no such thing. Racism is not this grand golden ticket endowed to minority populations as a defense against the majority. A black man voting for a black president simply because he wants to see a black person in office is just as racist as a white man voting for a white president because their skins match. A Hispanic judge ruling for a Hispanic public servant who is less qualified than his white colleague is as unjustified as a white judge ruling for a less competent white man.
Reverse racism implies that a minority directing racism at a majority is a secondary form of immorality – a more recent form of social injustice based off of – even perhaps a result of the first – racism itself. It is such a disgustingly beautiful way of allowing minority populations – bigoted and otherwise – to remain victimized and to dedicate only a measure of acknowledgement to majority recipients of injustice.
The implication is that I, a white majority, may have been dealt with unjustly based on my race, but only after I – even if only by association – dealt unjustly with others. The injustice dealt to me is – reverse racism admits – still an injustice, but it is, practically if not actually, based off of my own unjust treatment of another and thus less sympathetic and – on the grand scale, perhaps more deserved.
If I were a minority I would be, at my best times aggravated, and at my worst times irate at my fellow minorities' constant attempts to victimize me. How, I would like to know, can I be both an empowered individual and a predestined victim? Injustice is wrong and should be righted by individuals and society as a whole. But playing the victim in order to right the wrong is counter-productive. How can a woman who is attempting to prove to her world that she is as capable of rational thought as her male counterpart do so by portraying herself as the weak puppet of fate? How can she expect to be seen as strong and competent when all she will focus on is her oppression? If I want to impactfully prove to the world that I am capable, I will not ask for fairness from a population that has no faith in me and then attempt to prove myself on the “equality” that they never actually granted me because they do not yet believe I deserve it. I will practice and grow and learn and then I will prove myself, without any of their grace or assistance, against the odds. This is strength.
What happens when a population focuses on being victims is that instead of gaining freedom and respect they gain entitlement and think it is the same thing. This is why politically correctness is so disgusting. A feminist changes women to womyn and believes she has won a victory. But all she has really done is changed a spelling and not the opinions of the people who believe women are inferior to men. John Morley said, “You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.” If a society insists on calling white people Caucasians and black people African Americans, it does not follow that they have expelled racism in that society. I can call a man anything I wish to his face and still vote, speak, and act against him.
Treating people with equality is not the same thing as treating them the same. I am different from both the white woman and the black woman sitting nearby and I am glad of it, as, I’m sure, are they. Please treat me differently than you do the person in the corner who is fascinated by computer engineering; I would much prefer a good conversation on Steinbeck. Equality involves opportunity. It means that I can choose between computers and literature, not that I am forced into the same field as everyone else in society’s attempt to neutralize and to avoid racial, gender, and socioeconomic categorizing.
Equality is also not the same as being on equal footing. It’s like Emerson’s squirrel said to the mountain, “If I cannot carry forests on my back, / Neither can you crack a nut.” If I wish to be a philosopher, but my eyesight is so terrible I can’t read Aristotle, society does not owe me laser eye surgery. Equality does not mean we all get the same thing; it means we all have a chance at these things. Circumstance, character, and work must carry us the rest of the way.
…I have been searching in these past few paragraphs to find some thread of my original topic and I am fairly certain no such thread exists. Nevertheless, I have one more story to tell on the topic. I was listening to some political commentators on TV the other day (please don’t even get me started on commentators…I have no idea who you have to know to get one of those jobs but I cannot believe that I am the chump going into debt for law school when there are people out there who get paid to verbally blog) and one of them said something about how white males in today’s society have more restricted first amendment rights than others. The other commentator actually said, of course they do…they should have more limited freedom of speech; they aren’t a minority. This is not “reverse racism.” Don’t attempt to soften it with modifying adjectives. As Yann Martel says, “Don’t you bully me with your politeness.” The word for this kind of opinion is Racism. Just because society has chosen to be less appalled by it in this form, does not make it any less vulgar.
P.S. A note on my last entry: I received an email today from LSAC (Law School Admissions Committee) which is the avenue through which you funnel all your recommendation letters, LSAT scores, essays, etc. when you apply to law school. The subject line read “IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING YOUR LSAC ACCOUNT” (I do not exaggerate, the all-caps were their own).
I think: something is expiring, something didn’t go through, I’m missing a prereq, they lost my LSAT score, USD rejected me after all…
This is their urgent message: “Starting in 2010, the US Department of Education will be requiring significant changes in the way educational institutions collect and report race/ethnicity data. Accordingly, on July 19, 2009, LSAC changed the race/ethnicity designation in your LSAC account.
So I think: Lukas is right; they’re going to make me check Persian/American.
They continue, “Your previously reported ethnicity, Caucasian/White, has been changed to the subcategory Other Caucasian/White under the category Caucasian/White. Please log in to your LSAC account to view/update your race/ethnicity designation. Additional categories have been added, and you may select multiple categories.”
The problem was that classifying people within only one category was too limiting. It turns out that there are too many minorities nowadays. The US Department of Education finally read a history book and realized that only 2% of the population is purely British and 0% is purely American, officially making every single person a minority. They also realized that if you trace things back far enough everyone actually came from Africa, making everyone a majority. Subcategories were the only way to organize all the muck. How else could they know who to send scholarships to? The LSAC people kindly left a number at the bottom of the email for me to call in case I had any questions or concerns. I am calling them tomorrow to ask how much tax-payer money the US Department of Education spent on reorganizing the way educational institutions collect and report race/ethnicity data. I will also ask why, if they have extraneous money lying around, there are so many teachers receiving pink slips and so many students being rejected from the CSU system.
-R.A.
