From: ncostello@vms.eurokom.ie
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: is power needed for racism?
Date: 5 Oct 92 11:29:55 CET
Distribution: soc
Organization: EuroKom Conferencing Service

Michael Lanham asks:
>
>So, do blacks need "institutional power" before they can be racist?  Can an
>individual be racist if he/she is not white?
> 
Having got into a stand-up argument (my first for years!) on this
subject last week, I'll try to approach it calmly!

Is there such a thing as a "Black racist"? I don't think so, but it
depends how you choose your definitions.

You can make two kinds of definition of "racist"; and one of them will
allow "Black racist" to make sense while the other won't.

The first defines "racism" in terms of a set of characteristics, things
like "reaching decisions about people on the basis of their perceived
ethnicity" or maybe "discriminating against people on the basis of their
perceived ethnicity". You can refine those definitions but it won't make
much difference. Under that kind of definition "Black racism" is obviously
a concept that makes sense, and its existence could only be denied by
claiming (strong form) that Black people never discriminate on that basis
(not very plausible, one counter-example, easy to find, is enough to
disprove that claim); or by claiming (weak form) that discrimination by
other than whites is so rare and marginal that it is misleading to point
to it and claim some symmetry between "white racism" and "Black racism".
But that just means saying that "Black racism" exists but is not very
important. So under this kind of definition, "Black racism" does exist.

The second defines "racism" historically. In the context of America
(or more generally of the catastrophic and genocidal impact of Europe
on the rest of the world) "white racism" has been the racism of people
who run society against the oppressed and exploited, and it has functioned
to help white people feel good about oppressing and exploiting. Nothing
that might be called "Black racism" has had anything like the same
impact. "White racism" has been part of a system of power whereas "Black
racism" has been a reaction against a system of power. So it seems
misleading to try and put them on the same footing, it sounds like the
beginning of an attempt to dress up the role of Europeans in history:
"There's a bit of blame on both sides, let's take a balanced view ..."

This still more because a lot of things that are called "Black racism"
aren't really that at all. Take this quote from Sister Souljah (from
memory - I suppose it's this sort of quote that Clinton was referring to
when he said she was no better than Duke in reverse):

  "If your white great-great-grandfather killed my great-great-grandfather
  and your white great-grandfather enslaved my great-grandfather and your
  white grandfather raped my grandmother and your white father fooled,
  cheated and lied to my father, what kind of a fool would I be to say
  'Come, my friend!' to the white daughter and son."

"Black racism," some would say. No it's not, it's common-sense, it's
pattern-recognition. We all know that attitudes are transmitted from
parent to child, and what kind of a fool _would_ she be, after that
history, to approach white people with a completely open mind? That's not
to say that there's anything genetically oppressive about white people,
or that _all_ white people are like that, it's just the common-sense
observation that if you've noticed white people on the whole have
historically and  still do have that kind of attitude and behavior, even
if concealed, why should you pretend that you haven't noticed it?

So I think the second kind of definition of racism, the one that
doesn't allow the concept of "black racism," is more informative; and
that a lot of what is called "black racism" isn't at all. I've heard
someone say for instance that Ice-T is a black racist and says white
people should be killed. When pressed, it turned out that the song
referred to actually talked about cops, not white people, so that was
an interesting confusion. I think people are talking up "Black racism"
just to make white racism less visible. They do it as a logical game
using the first kind of definition, but the second kind is much more
useful.