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v t e

Reverse racism is a term which refers to the perceived discrimination against the dominant cultural group in a society.

In the United States

The term "reverse racism" came into use as the struggle for African-American rights divided the white community. In 1966, Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), publicly accused members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) of reverse racism in their efforts to exclude or expel whites from local government in Alabama to make room for blacks. Williams argued that SNCC's (unsuccessful) "all-black" campaign in Alabama would drive white moderates out of the civil rights movement. "Black racism" was a more common term in this era, used to describe SNCC and groups like the Black Panthers.

The Supreme Court has held that racial preferences in university admissions for minority students do not violate Equal Protection in cases such as Grutter v. Bollinger. In 2012, a monumental case involving this issue was heard by the Supreme Court in Fisher v. University of Texas.

The term gained widespread use in debates and legal actions concerning affirmative action. It appeared resurgent on the political scene with the successful candidacy of Barack Obama in 2008.

A recent study conducted at Tufts and Harvard sought to quantify perceptions of reverse racism by surveying Americans who identified as White or Black. The study's title, "White People See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing", indicates its findings: that Whites feel as though they now suffer disproportionately from racism. (Blacks felt that anti-Black racism had decreased over time, but did not perceive increases in anti-White bias.) These results were constant for people of different ages and levels of education.

Critics of the term "reverse racism" have called it a myth or an oxymoron, saying that racism entails systemic oppression and inequality. However, it would be negligent to believe racism could exist but reverse racism doesn't. Furthermore, reverse racism can also be synonymous with Anti-racism, which is often one in the same and is used as a detractor from the truth of a situation to create oppression and inequality. Reverse racism can also apply to those outside of racial groups. Non-Caucasian racists often use reverse racism and Anti-racism as a crutch to call groups they are racist against, racists. This gives the illusion of a moral high ground in disputes, which has been very beneficial to minority racial groups in creating oppression and inequality in their favor.

In South Africa

The term has been used actively by White and Black South Africans after the end of apartheid. Accusations of reverse racism have been leveled particularly at government efforts to transform the demographics of South Africa's white-dominated civil service.

Nelson Mandela in 1995 described "racism in reverse" when Black students demonstrated in favor changing the racial makeup of staff at South African universities. But students denied Mandela's claim and argued that in fact a great deal of ongoing actual racism persisted from apartheid. Some charged that Mandela's government moved slowly in other areas of social change, due to fears of being perceived as "reverse racist." Mandela was later himself charged with reverse racism—during 1997 proceedings of the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission and for supporting the 1998 Employment Equity Bill.

Claims of reverse racism continued into the 21st century. Helen Suzman a prominent white anti-apartheid politician, has charged the African National Congress and the Mbeki administration of reverse racism since Mandela's departure in 1999. In 2004, a group of young white members of the "Solidarity Trade Union" locked themselves into a zoo to protest discrimination against whites.

South African critics of the "reverse racism" concept use similar arguments as Americans. Accusations of "reverse racism" have been described as a defense mechanism, and attributed to white people's refusal to take responsibility for apartheid.

Mixed-race South Africans (designated as "Coloured" during apartheid) have also sometimes claimed to be victimized by reverse racism of the new Black government. Similar accusations have been leveled by Indian and Afrikaner groups, who feel that they have not been dominant historically but now suffer from discrimination by the Black government.

References

1. "Define Reverse Racism - Reverse Discrimination - Reverse Racism Examples". Racerelations.about.com. Retrieved 2013-05-03.
2. "Reverse Racism: Whites Believe They Are Victims Of Racism More Often Than Blacks". Medicalnewstoday.com. Retrieved 2013-05-03.
3. Susan de Villiers and Stefan Simanowitz, "South Africa: The ANC at 100", Contemporary Review 294, March 2012; accessed via ProQuest.
4. Karen Mac Gregor, "Mandela slams `reverse racism'", Times Higher Education", 24 March 1995.
5. Abiola Sinclair, "MEDIA WATCH: All is not well, disappointments, racial clashes", New York Amsterdam News, 16 September 1995; accessed via ProQuest. "The students maintained that the university was living in the apartheid past with the upper echelons reserved for whites. The students are demanding that some jobs be reserved for Blacks. AZASM had denied the charge of reverse racism. They maintain it is unfair for thousands of Black teachers to be out of work while white teachers sit up in good jobs in Black schools."
6. Paul Taylor, "Black Capitalists Rare In New South Africa; Apartheid's Legacy, Cultural Ethos Cited", Washington Post, 19 March 1995; accessed via ProQuest. "So far Mandela's government has moved slowly on that front. 'I think the government is still looking over its shoulder, afraid of the tag of reverse racism,' said Thami Mazwai, editor of Enterprise, a glossy monthly magazine devoted to black businesses. He noted that earlier this year a white ad agency and the nation's only black ad agency competed for a major government contract to publicize the public hearing process for the writing of a new constitution. Although the black agency has won several industry awards, the white agency got the contract."
7. Dean Murphy, "Apartheid-Era Leader Defies Subpoena; S. Africa: Truth commission urges contempt charges against former President Pieter W. Botha", Washington Post, 20 December 1997; accessed via ProQuest. "The move to charge Botha is particularly sensitive because it comes just days after President Nelson Mandela, in a racially charged address to the ruling African National Congress, harshly criticized white South Africans for protecting their positions of privilege and doing little to reconcile with the black majority. The speech, hailed as accurate by blacks, brought calls of reverse racism from many whites."
8. "Gumisai Mutume", "Racism Spoils It for New Democracy", Inter-Press Service, 3 April 1993.
9. Kate Dunn, "Mandela Hits White Wealth", Christian Science Monitor, 26 February 1998.
10. Scott Calvert, "Against apartheid, at odds with blacks", Baltimore Sun, 14 May 2004.
11. "Youth Cage Themselves in Zoo to Protest Against Discrimination", The Statesman (Press Trust of India), 27 December 2004.
12. Yolisa Dalamba, "Towards An African Renaissance: Identity, Race And Representation In Post-Apartheid South Africa", Journal of Cultural Studies 2(1), 2000; accessed via ProQuest. "These Whites are 'African' when it suits their individual needs, but it is an identity which can be put on and removed without a second thought. It is this very chameleon-like behaviour which leads to the very existence of such terms as 'reverse racism.' The largely unnamed fear and guilt that Whites consciously or unconsciously betray through their attitudes and body language is worthy of some analysis, hooks articulates this in the following statement: 'I was weary of the way in which white people want to deflect attention away from their accountability for anti-racist change by making it seem that everyone has been socialised to be racist against their will. My fear is that this often becomes another apology for racism, one which seeks to erase a vision of accountability and responsibility which could truly empower' (1992: 14)."
13. Lydia Polgreen, "For Mixed-Race South Africans, Equity Is Elusive", New York Times, 27 July 2003. Archived 13 November 2012.]
14. Danna Harman, "South Africans try to 'beat' a segregated past", Christian Science Monitor, 26 September 2002.

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