by Matt Daniels
Clash Daily Contributor
In the previous article the concepts behind “White Guilt” were picked apart, with the conclusion that the phrase serves only those seeking to keep people with different skin colors or political beliefs worlds apart.
This article continues the deep plunge into shallow waters, namely the dismantling of phrases that have gained a lot of power and following in recent years, used primarily by the ignorant but reinforced by the sly. These phrases might only be a small make up of words—which break no bones—but with them comes vitriol and disdain; the user tosses these phrases around casually, unaware of the true dangers within. Words may not break bones, but they can certainly act as mortar for the brick wall of progressivism.
While white guilt is an offensive and absurd term, another might have the upper hand in absurdity: Reverse Racism. Consider for a moment these words; racism is the belief that a race is superior to others, that specific races are inferior for stereotypical reasons. It’s inherently known that the mistreatment of a man based on his race alone is abhorrent, but I digress.
As for the second word in the phrase—reverse literally means opposite or contrary, e.g. the opposite of driving a car forward would be to drive it in backwards, known to drivers as “reverse”. Easy enough.
Making its debut in the mid-60s, the phrase caught fire around the time of Barack Obama’s presidential run in 2008. It seemed that all at once racism was more alive than ever—if one were to believe gossip and speculation that is—and that anyone who didn’t want Mr. Obama to become president was in fact a racist, because Mr. Obama is (half) black. Makes perfect sense; no one could ever disagree with someone of another race unless they were racist.
But what of black people that didn’t want John McCain to become the President because he’s white? Isn’t that racism? No! That’s reverse racism, fella!
Let’s examine what we’ve got so far.
An example of racism is when a person is treated differently by another because of their race. Reverse is the opposite of something. We can also posit that racism nearly exclusively refers to a white person who is prejudice against people of other races, typically black people; we can posit this because that’s become common global vernacular. So if racism means a white person discriminates against a black person, the opposite of that would be a black person discriminating against a white person, or reverse racism.
But wouldn’t a black person who belittles a white person because of their race constitute the original definition of racism? Here’s a hint: Yes.
The phrase reverse racism implies that white people were the first to be racist, or that their racism is more severe or quite possibly that the ratio of racism from whites compared to those of other races is much higher, making racism a problem of the whites and reverse racism—a much less offensive racism —the problem of other races. Reverse racism on the surface appears to be an equalizer, but in truth it’s a slippery manner of inferring that it exists only because whites were racist first—not an equalizer, a justifier.
It’s not much of a stretch to reach this inference. In the modern era, thanks in no small part to poor education, it’s widely believed that white people are the dominant racist group and that all others are secondary in this regard.
Although it would be easy enough to do some research and find that all races have faced some form of ill-treatment from others—for example, ancient Egyptians had this thing for slavery, as did the Greeks, Romans and Chinese—it’s unfair to assert that any one race is responsible for the practice of racism; it’s also unwise to propagate the idea as well.
As with white guilt, reverse racism serves to show that one race is inferior due to their faults as a collective race—whites enslaved blacks and were the first to cast the bigoted stone, and are therefore as a whole racist. This notion then reinforces the need for action; white people need to make up the damage they’ve caused.
It may not be explicitly stated, but there a clear understanding that progressives believe society needs to start over and fix things as they see fit. Forget about those who are not racist, for example; this is a war, and as the saying partially goes all is fair in war.
The war is in the minds of those that desperately need the world to move forward into a hyper-controlled socialist platform, where the power is given to the people (on the surface) and that leadership (aka corruption) can make the tough decisions for us all. In order to do this it’s imperative that people have the wind knocked out of them; what better way to do that than to create false concepts that pit the weak against the strong with numbers too great to overcome? Generate a few malicious phrases and let ignorance do its thing.
In other words, it’s not about race at all; it’s about getting people to think it’s about race so they don’t see that it’s really about power, namely us having none of it and corrupt officials having it all. In a truly socialist society racism would be the least of our problems.
Part three, White Privilege, will publish soon.
Image: Courtesy of: http://d3l1ght.deviantart.com/art/Fight-White-Pride-114399086
Matt Daniels is a proud husband and father from Salt Lake City, who when not writing about politics or social issues spends his time writing comedic articles for various publications under the moniker Gary the Unicorn. Matt is also an accomplished musician, rabid Utah Jazz fan and supporter of the arts.
