A lot of us white people aren’t racist. Obviously. Just like many straight people aren’t homophobic, and just like many men aren’t sexist. Still, a lot of us white people exercise problematic behaviour against people of colour, and a lot of us white people are unaware of the privileges we carry in everyday life.
“What kind of privilege?” you might be wondering. Well, in feminist theory, privileges are a set of unearned benefits of specific social or economic groups, that are empowered by society at the expense of oppressed groups, meaning that privileged groups have institutional power over the oppressed group. For example in a white supremacist society, people of colour don’t have institutional power (at least, not based on their race). …show more content…
Another thing is “reverse racism”. The idea that POC can somehow oppress white people. In order to be racist you need power and structural privilege. POC have neither. Also “reverse racism” is often flung around in response to angry language or protest. The thing we white people often don’t remember is, POC have been fighting racism for long time now, and understandably, they are quite tired of it, and instead of policing their language we should accept it, because anger is a legitimate response to oppression.
Another situation where “reverse racism” is used as an argument to silence POC is when one makes a “white people joke”. Here it is important to recognise that “white people jokes” are not the same as “black people jokes”, because “white people jokes” are not reinforcing stereotypes that have harmed and oppressed a race for centuries. And we should not be offended by “white people jokes”, because we should be able to see that white people as a whole have systematically oppressed POC in Denmark, and jokes are a valid way of coping with being oppressed. We should also be able to recognise that sometimes we are shitty white people and the jokes remind us to stop being shitty white
“What kind of privilege?” you might be wondering. Well, in feminist theory, privileges are a set of unearned benefits of specific social or economic groups, that are empowered by society at the expense of oppressed groups, meaning that privileged groups have institutional power over the oppressed group. For example in a white supremacist society, people of colour don’t have institutional power (at least, not based on their race). …show more content…
Another thing is “reverse racism”. The idea that POC can somehow oppress white people. In order to be racist you need power and structural privilege. POC have neither. Also “reverse racism” is often flung around in response to angry language or protest. The thing we white people often don’t remember is, POC have been fighting racism for long time now, and understandably, they are quite tired of it, and instead of policing their language we should accept it, because anger is a legitimate response to oppression.
Another situation where “reverse racism” is used as an argument to silence POC is when one makes a “white people joke”. Here it is important to recognise that “white people jokes” are not the same as “black people jokes”, because “white people jokes” are not reinforcing stereotypes that have harmed and oppressed a race for centuries. And we should not be offended by “white people jokes”, because we should be able to see that white people as a whole have systematically oppressed POC in Denmark, and jokes are a valid way of coping with being oppressed. We should also be able to recognise that sometimes we are shitty white people and the jokes remind us to stop being shitty white