Not to mention confusing. The "reverse" of "racism" would certainly be "equality", so why should "reverse racism" mean "more racism"? This is pretty elementary logic--something can't be its own opposite.
I buy that reasoning standalone (albeit it's still prone to misinterpretation), but in context its advocates appear to believe it is congruent with or equivalent to 'equality'.
In mathematical terms it might be similar to lay persons confusing inverse for converse.
“Reverse” is not the most precise word for the term, but so long as there is no compiler error when a person uses the wrong word, human natural language will continue to be sloppy. Let’s stop being overly pedantic — that is one of the guidelines of this site
It’s not pedantry. People think that because the word is “reverse” or “anti” that it means “the opposite of racist”, but it doesn’t. The distinction is fundamental to our national race conversation.
The intersectional view is that 'real racism' requires a power imbalance - which is actually a fair point.
It would be unfair not to recognize that some groups have considerably more power than others.
That said - it's still racism one way or another, discriminatory etc. and in 2020 it's getting really hard to talk about individuals as being a function of their race.
So while it's worth reminding ourselves of the intersectional issue ... it doesn't really justify bad behaviour one way or another.
> The intersectional view is that 'real racism' requires a power imbalance - which is actually a fair point. It would be unfair not to recognize that some groups have considerably more power than others.
I could get down with this if whites behaved as a class, working for their own mutual interests; however, such whites are few and far between and generally powerless.
The Democratic Party has a lot more wealthy people, a lot more of the 1%, and a lot more six figure earners, than the Republican Party does today. It's not remotely a close comparison.
That's why Democrats (comically) fought so hard to preserve the SALT tax break for higher income earners - so many Democrats earn six figures in locations like SF, LA and NYC. It's comical because it put the Democrats in a position of fighting for tax breaks for people earning high incomes.
The notion that the Republican Party is the party of the rich is no longer accurate. The voting foundation of the Republican Party today is the middle class that the Democrats have increasingly abandoned over the last 30 years (which is entirely what got Trump elected; white, educated women are what cinched Trump's election, and the middle class voters in critical states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin).
The Democratic Party is largely hyper bifurcated between wealthier white people and poorer miniorities, heavily coastal in location. The Republican Party largely consists of the lower middle class up to the lower upper class, and is largely centered in so called fly over or red states, non-coastal, and almost entirely white. These are generalities (ie there are exceptions), however they are broadly correct.
Democrats dominate to an extreme all the high-wealth locations in the country, including nearly every major metro (which is where most of the high wealth individuals live in the US). Those metros include: Seattle, NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Jose, Austin, Denver, Washington DC, Boston, and so on. There is only one Republican mayor among the top 10 largest US cities, with Republicans only having the mayorship of 13 of the 50 largest cities.
The richest people also tend to be Democrats: Gates, Zuckerberg, Buffett, Bezos, Bloomberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, MacKenzie Scott, Steve Ballmer, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Laurene Powell Jobs.
It doesn't get any more elite and money-representative than that list. Nine of the ten richest people in the US are Democrats. It's hilarious that the Republican Party is supposedly the party of the rich, and those people are all Democrats. I say all of this as someone that has never voted Republican in my life. I don't care for the party, however the old propaganda narrative that they represent the rich is false today.
Isn’t there a pretty clear power imbalance if one side is being given a platform to espouse these views in front of hundreds of employees while they get endorsed by HR and company leadership?
Are you really comparing the 'power of someone to say something at work in 2020' with things like 'Black people were not allowed to have mortgages until one generation ago'?
First, I feel you misrepresented my comment. “Saying something at work” doesn’t quite convey the same thing as “given a platform in front of hundreds of employees at a formal event with full support and endorsement by HR and company leadership.” The latter sounds a lot more like actual discrimination because it’s backed up by explicit and established power structures.
Second, you’ve selected examples separated in time by decades. When you grant yourself the power of time travel, it certainly does become a lot easier to come up with examples. The world is changing fast nowadays. The landscape is completely different today than it was even 10 years ago.
Your comment makes sense only if you're conflating "racism" with "racial discrimination". Per the APA:
Individual racism is a personal belief in the superiority of one’s race over another. It is linked to racial prejudice and discriminatory behaviors, which can be an expression of implicit and explicit bias.
Institutionalized racism is a system of assigning value and allocating opportunity based on skin color. It unfairly privileges some individuals and groups over others and influences social institutions in our legal, educational, and governmental systems. It is reflected in disparities in, but not limited to, wealth, income, justice, employment, housing, medicine, education, and voting. It can be expressed implicitly or explicitly and occurs when a certain group is targeted and discriminated against based on race.
