What to Say When Someone Brings Up Racism Against White People
By: Claire Kaplan
Tags: Racial Justice, Racism, Race, Institutional Racism

Will, the biggest kid in class, and Brian, the smallest kid in class, get into a fight one day at recess. Let’s even say Brian hits first, pretty hard (for him), doing almost no damage. Then Will hits him back, equally hard, breaking his nose. There are two things going on here. First, the act of hitting someone is bad. That’s true no matter who you are and no matter whom you’re hitting. But second is the reality of the situation, and the reality is one of those assaults did much more damage than the other. Because there was already a power imbalance going in. Will is probably going to get a bigger punishment than Brian, and he might ask, “how is that fair? Brian hit me too, and he hit me first. Why do I get a worse punishment just because I happen to be bigger and stronger?” And he’d have a point. But he also knew before he threw a punch that he, unlike Brian, was in danger of seriously injuring his opponent. Judging Will more harshly for doing the same thing is unfair, but that unfairness is a direct result of the unfair situation.

In case the title of this article didn’t give it away, here’s the twist: Will is white people, Brian is black people, and punching is racism. Of course, Will could also be men, Brian could be women, and punching could be sexism. It works many ways.

My point is, there are many, mostly white, people who don’t see a qualitative difference between anti-black racism and anti-white racism, even if they concede there’s more of the first than the second. “Why can black people make up names for white people, but we can’t use slurs like the n-word?” “I’m not privileged — a black person was racist against me because I’m white.” Or, most unfortunately, “why do we always have to discuss and condemn racism against black people specifically? Can’t we just say that all racism is bad? I mean, all racism is bad, right?” I want these people to think of Will. Will shows that the unquestionable universality of the moral principle “hitting is bad” can’t erase the obvious disparity of the situation. It was wrong of Brian to throw a punch, just as it was wrong of Will. But it was obviously not a fair fight, and the consequences bore that out. It is not scandalous to acknowledge that black people have suffered far more from racism than white people, and the difference is not only in degree but in character. Bear in mind, too, Brian has been dealing with bigger kids his whole life, and (in this example) Will has been dealing with smaller kids his whole life. Will had a lot less to lose by walking away.

There’s a big difference, though. Will didn’t have any choice about being bigger than Brian. He couldn’t share his muscles or give Brian a magic pill to make him bigger. White people, by contrast, are absolutely able to share our power. So to all white people who are tired of their word choice being so critically important: yes. We all agree. Hopefully, one day, your words will receive far less scrutiny and criticism. Because white people will no longer be in charge of everything, so our words won’t carry the weight they do now. Personally, I’m looking forward to it.