Yeeeeah but no. It is absolutely not possible to be racist towards white people. Can you be prejudice towards white people? Yes. Is being prejudice ok? No, not at all. No one should be treated differently or unfairly because of their race. But remember that prejudice in minorities against white people is generally in response to oppression. Whereas racism (which is created by white people and enforced on minorities) is a form of oppression. But think about it, if you’d been beaten down, raped and killed by white people for centuries, chances are you’d be a little skeptical of them too.
Now before you go running to your Oxford dictionary (lulz, wonder who wrote that…) to look up the definition of racism, lemme explain. Racism is not just someone being mean to you or calling you names. It’s not just a belief that one group is better than another, it’s an entire SYSTEM that supports the oppression of another group. Racism is a result of prejudice and POWER. Meaning that laws and societal norms are created by one group (ahem, white people) in order to enforce those prejudices onto an ENTIRE group (ahem people of color).
If someone is being mean to you just because you’re white, then they’re being an asshole. But they aren’t a racist asshole because society is not giving them a pass to be mean to you or treat you poorly because you’re white. Society is not rewarding their behavior or creating laws that hurt your quality of life just because you’re white.
Don’t feel bad though, I realize this is something a lot of white people struggle with because in their minds racism = being called cracker, getting beat up by a black person, being told you can’t dance or some black girl put gum in your hair and you had to get a pixie cut which ended up actually looking kinda cute. In reality racism means being denied a job interview because the name on your resume “sounds black”, being removed from school because your natural hair texture is deemed “distracting”, 100 times higher drug sentences for crack cocaine (which is commonly associated with poor black people) versus cocaine (which is commonly used by upper middle class white people), being stopped and frisked or worse KILLED on your way home because you “look suspicious” (ahem black) and so on and so on.
Hope this clears things up cause I’m really tired of explaining this!
