Reverse racism has become a standard trope on the right.
Were I to have coined such a phrase, it would have been “obverse racism,” since the idea of “reverse racism” resides in the idea that everything is a coin flip and has a single opposite. It derives from a sort of concrete thinking that sees everything in absolute terms – in this case, perfectly black and white.
In our local weekly newspaper recently a letter-writer parroted the mantra of the right, complaining it was distressing that the Village next door to ours, Oak Park, maintained its diversity, equity and inclusion program despite her thinking “DEI was dead.” She went on, “Such positions across the country have been removed due to the obvious racism DEI embraced.”
The proud barrenness of thinking in these sentiments — never mind the paucity of empathy — is stunning, drawn, quite possibly, from a chyron on a certain cable channel.
More revealing, though, is that the current administration’s regressive campaign has permitted many such voices to openly announce their resentment against, and disdain for, exposure and correction of historic wrongs. It’s revealing that the resentment and disdain focus, as this letter-writer did, almost entirely on racial diversity, equity and inclusion and the sense that white people are suffering discrimination from DEI. Because from the beginning, DEI has had a broad scope, seeking to recognize and come to grips with the struggles of women, non-white people, the disabled, the aged, the sexually non-binary, and the marginalized of all sorts in our society.
Not to state the obvious, but white people in our nation are, comparatively speaking, in fine fettle. Their forebears were not enslaved people, and they don’t have to live with unremitting otherness and the gratingly negative assumptions that come with that otherness.
But they don’t any longer feel safe in their privilege. As a result, their ability to understand the rank inequities of our society is truncated as they rush into their anti-DEI shelters.
I myself, an unthreatened white person, look out and see a brighter day instead, lit up by the idea that I can help to remove previously insurmountable barriers to equity and inclusion. Rather than diminishing my quality of life, it improves it. I’ve certainly had privilege. It gave me more than a leg up. I can cede that privilege and, at the very least, get out of the way of those who strive for a better life. Better than that, I can try to help pave the way to that better life by paying attention to inequities and working to displace them.
The right loves to speak sneeringly of what they call “woke” ideas. If you’ve paid attention, their real quarrel is with the very idea of identifying and helping people who, for many reasons, can’t have the lives they themselves have. They truly see such activity as simply not their job. The right is obsessed with bootstraps. They think everyone has or should have them. They utterly lack the ability to perceive that lots of people are born without bootstraps (never mind boots) and haven’t the means to buy them. And, as I’ve strongly suggested, they particularly scorn non-white, bootstrap-less people who, they greatly fear, want to steal their bootstraps.
But enough about bootstraps. Let’s keep on keepin’ on with DEI. And when our neighbors complain, pat them on the head, give them a hug and send them on their way.
This post appeared first on Ed McDevitt’s blog, Art Can Save Us and Life’s Ideas.
