The long Western legacy of violence against Asian Americans

[GMDino]

(03-18-2021, 11:14 AM)Dill Wrote: What you are referring to here is "reverse racism," which doesn't exist as a material fact, but is nevertheless perceived to by many white people in the U.S. It rests in part on lack of understanding of how the term "racism" is defined and used in current social science work.

That is why arguments frequently arise whenever people use terms like "white privilege" or "white grievance" to analyze race-based power differentials between groups. Some white people perceive racial attack in such discussions, as if all whites are "blamed" somehow, and counter by insisting "Blacks can be racist too!" and numerating instances of Blacks or other racial groups exhibiting discrimination towards whites or other races.  

For this group, it becomes "racist" to use race at all when analyzing power differentials, poverty, or violence against sub-groups like Asians. So anyone using or elaborating concepts like "white privilege" to explain social phenomena becomes the "real racist." Next step is to argue that "You can't fight racism with racism." The option they want is recognition that all groups can be racist. It is an individual thing and anyone can be one. Analysis stops there, with "individual responsibility." So stop making it all about whites.

This is an understandable viewpoint in the U.S. today, as race continues to play a central role in U.S. politics, yet many people (white and black) know little about the history of race relations which constructs the world we live in now.  As the wealth gap widens, U.S. dominance of the world economy/politics recedes, people who have lived most of their lives in socially dominant positions feel threatened by forces that are hard to analyze adequately.  One of those is the continued insistence of many Black opinion leaders that something called "systemic racism" is still at work in our laws, politics, and daily interactions. Some even go so far as to call for "reparations."

Politicians appeal to this feeling of unrest and imbalance among some whites too. When Right Wing figures from Tucker Carlson to Bill Barr make a point of denying there is something called "systemic racism," they are tapping white grievance as the perception "the Blacks" are using past repression to leverage unequal outcomes today.  That is where the "real racism" is.

And the continual accusations that others have racism "ingrained" in them while simultaneously saying that hurling accusations of racism is "projection" broke my irony meter and why there is no need to respond directly, or at all, any more. 

The non-PC crowd sure get up in arms when a label gets used that *THEY* don't like.