The Terrible Price of Being Tagged a Reverse Racist
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich backpedaled from his reverse racist slur of Supreme Court designate Sonia Sotomayor as a racist. A defiant Rush Limbaugh didn't. There's a reason. For more than four decades the reverse racist tag has been the most potent weapon in the arsenal of ultra-conservatives and closet bigots to torpedo affirmative action, cower elected officials and judicial appointees into silence or tepid support of civil rights and poverty related issues and court decisions, and deflect attention from the continued political and economic dominance of well-to-do white males. Obama's election did not change the racial power dynamic in America.
There is still only a handful of African-American, Latino or Asian CEOs who run Fortune 500 companies or who sit on their Boards of Directors. The overwhelming majority of top, middle and lower corporate managers are white males. There is only one African-American in the Senate. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund notes that the increase in the number of minorities on the federal bench has been frozen during the Bush years. Minorities still make up a small percentage of state and federal judges. The first Latina on the High Court won't change that. Laws and public policy are still made, shaped, and enforced by white males.
Sotomayor and any minority perceived to be a threat to corporate and political white male dominance will be branded a reverse racist. This is not new.
The bogus term cropped up in the early 1960s during the first surge of black militancy. A CBS special on the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X, Mike Wallace, was labeled "the hate that hate produced." The special played hard on the theme that the Black Muslims with their white man is a devil rhetoric and messianic religious flavored black separatism were the incarnate of racial bigotry. In the next few years, the Black Panthers, Young Lords, Chicano activists, and other militant groups were routinely reviled as reverse Klan, Nazis, and racist nightriders.
The term reverse discrimination seeped into the official lexicon in 1969 when conservatives took the first light swipe at alleged racial favoritism in government contracting programs that mandated hiring goals and timetables for minorities. The term didn't fully resonate at that time. There was still the glow and goodwill from the 1960s civil rights movement. And then President Richard Nixon backed affirmative action programs that included minority hiring and contracting quotas in the trades. The mood abruptly changed in the late 1970s with the first full blown assault on affirmative action. The assault was fueled by the notion that white males were fast losing ground to hordes of unqualified, incompetent blacks, Latinos and women in business, the professions and the trades. Reverse discrimination or reverse racism now became a staple in the public vocabulary. In its Bakke case ruling in 1978 the Supreme Court virtually banned the use of quotas for minorities in hiring and education, under the guise of ending reverse discrimination.
Since then the faintest hint of a tilt toward minorities in a corporate hiring program, or a university hiring or scholarship program has drawn instant howls of reverse discrimination and piles of lawsuits. The chill on affirmative action programs partly worked. Republican and Democratic presidents Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton, vowed to end or modify affirmative action programs in government agencies. Much of the public now firmly believed that minorities were getting unfair advantage in business and the professions, and that this and they were racist.
Limbaugh and conservatives are banking that branding Sotomayor with the racist tag will punch the standard emotional hot buttons before, during and after her confirmation. The after effect is especially important since so much is at stake in how Sotomayor will vote and the opinions she'll write on the likely stream of race tinged cases that the court will be called on to decide.
Pounding Sotomayor as a racist has already paid a small dividend. In private meetings with moderate Democrat and conservative Republican Senators, the judge slightly pulled back from the reference she made to herself as a wise Latina in a 2001 speech. She called it a poor choice of words. This won't be the last mea culpa she'll be required to make for her alleged racism before she's confirmed. She'll be under tremendous pressure to assure Senators that she'll play it strictly by the moderate and conservative playbook on any and all decisions that even remotely touch on race and class issues on the bench.
This is the terrible price that a wise Latina or anyone else tagged as a reverse racist will have to pay. And will continue to pay.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard weekly in Los Angeles on Fridays on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and live streamed nationally on ktym.com
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If so many talented minorities are being passed over for promotions etc.based on their minority statuses, wouldn't someone make a killing by hiring these people?
I'm a white woman. And what the white "men" (in Limbaugh's case especially the word should be in quotations as it's debatable) have been doing to this judge turns my stomach. Being from the south where the landscape is littered with this type of male, I saw them coming a mile away.
What they're doing to Judge Sotomayor is no different than the arguments they used to make against civil rights in it's earliest debate. The argument then was if you give a black man this much progressive or that much entry into society, why the next thing you know he'll be taking your job and taking your women. They turned his valid appeal for basic rights into an actually smear on decency. It was sickening 100 years go. It's sickening now.
And this time the same cheap tactic is being used, only interestingly against a woman. Of another ethnicity. But it's the same old dog and pony show. Their bogus fears of the oppression of the white male would be laughable, if it weren't so pathetic. And I've no doubt that out of self preservation she will subtly change aspects of her persona and her thought processes.
Claims of victimhood of the white male are just a way to help the white male to get back to some good old fashioned victimizing. Nothing new here. But it's gets so old.
Thank you Mr. Hutchinson! Oftentimes, when I'm commenting on forums online, if I talk about individual and institutional racism, I get labeled as a "racist." People seem not to understand that hating someone because of their skin color and hating someone because they hate you because of your skin color are two COMPLETELY different things. This is exactly what happened to Obama's pastor, Reverend Wright - he spoke about America's racism and got called a racist. Such BS!
Your experience still does not change the fact that many African Americans are more racist than the vast majority of people of European ancestory
You are exactly right, now just view your statement from the point of view of a white male who is falsely labeled a racist.
As a person opposed to "reverse racism" or racism in any form for that matter, I have to ask myself if the author's assessment of me is accurate. According to Mr. Hutchinson, my goals are to: "torpedo affirmative action, cower elected officials and judicial appointees into silence or tepid support of civil rights and poverty related issues and court decisions, and deflect attention from the continued political and economic dominance of well-to-do white males."
Torpedo affirmative action...C
Cower elected officials and judicial appointees into silence or tepid support of civil rights and poverty related issues and court decisions.
Deflect attention from the continued political and economic dominance of well-to-do white males...Wr
"Affirmative action has nothing to do with equal opportunity and everything to do with equal outcome. With affirmative action, as everyone well knows, the competitive advantage is based soley on "color of skin.""
Of course it has to do with equal opportunity. Let me share a little story with you.
My husband and some college friends (all African) were looking for a house to rent in CT. They called for directions, confirmed that the place was still available and showed up to the house 15 minutes later. The realtor told them that the house had "just been rented." Hmm....tha
Do you think that if any of them had applied to work at that realty place, that they would have been given an equal opportunity? Nope. The racists who worked there never would have allowed it. With affirmative action though, they'd have a better chance. It is a perfect system? No. But until there are less racists controlling the country, it's something that is necessary.
queotic:
What you fail to grasp is that a landlord refusing to rent to black men is 'just the price of doing business' and while I'm certain that showmescience would never cheer such behavior, he would not shed any tears nor would it get his dander up, provided he wasn't the black man in question. Same thing with work. (I am, for the record, a black woman working in the sciences for a medium-sized company. I am the ONLY black person in the company on the research side of the house and, as far as I am aware, the only black woman in the entire *company* of 2,000. I am, despite my qualifications and time at this company, low-person on the totem pole by *job title* even though, generally, I am thought to be one of the top three people in my department. I am the second most senior person by time on the team and have a *lower* pay grade than any of my colleagues. Any of them.I'm certain, though, that showmescience would chalk that up to something, ANYTHING, other than race and even if it were, it would not be something warranting legal redress.)
Cheers
Aj
I understand the compexity of the issue but how do we end discrimination with institutionalized discrimination? How about the the white male that scores higher on the promotion test but is not picked because they need a black female? Is that fair? No. I am not saying that discrimination towards minorities or females does not exist. Obviousely, it does. All I am saying is that it will NEVER end as long as we condone it with affirmative action.
The American enterprise has been one big affirmative action program for white men! You can take it personally or not. The "competitive advantage" as you call it is not based solely on "skin color" because white women have been the largest beneficiaries of affirmative action - so while you pursue your objective of identifying reverse racism (for what, I don't know)as you call it be sure to check out the gender card. and listen very carefully to the language white men have been throwing at Judge Sotomayor. It is a common belief in this country (and other places on the planet where white men have planted "their" flag) that white men are the most competent and knowlegeable. We have been programmed to believe that they do everything better than anybody else. White men are so use to being in charge that it is difficult for them to see any one else's reality. White men only perceive their "others" as commodities and get extremely upset if their "other" dares to assert her own identity or make claims of competence.
Since white men are gluttons for power and control - and feel specially entitled, it bugs them when the "other" reverses the gaze because they have a problem with social equality. They are "fearful" of the other having any measure of control because they think those of us who are not white males or "abnormal" are on a vengence trip for the way we have been historically treated. So they close ranks and claim some great injustice has been done. As the white man's "other" my entire educational experience has been focused on teaching me to think and act according to white male standards and to invalidate myself. This is apparent when I can tell you everything about the white man and the his(story) of the world - but most white men can't tell you anything about women's history, black history, Latina history and contribution of world culture. To them it is irrellevant (sic) and inferior - so why should they bother to be enclusive in any area of public life. They feel they are superior and everybody else is a savage. This is one of the attitudinal foundations of white male racism. It feels good to have privilege - to dominate the argument and the discourse, to red line, to lynch, to disparage a woman's menstral cycle (see G Gordon Liddy), to deny opportunity, ect. we had to have a civil rights movement, women's sufferage,
I don't know where you were educated, but at my university obscure poems written by black women in the 70's were required reading while the works of Thoreau, Whitman and other classics were discarded. I can tell you about Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart." I can tell you where to find a database of womens' rights advocates online. I can tell you that "Atlas Shrugged" was never part of any curriculum, even though my degree is in business and that book, in the business world, happens to be among the most influencial literary works of our time. I can tell you that while we should have been reading "Atlas Shrugged" we were instead studying every aspect of "social justice." Go ahead and quiz me.
The education system is not teaching while male superiority. It is teaching white male oppression of others, which makes minorities and women predisposed to a defeatist attitude from the moment they enter the business world.
Enlightened white males who are honest with themselves understand that the black ghetto and the barrio don't just exist because blacks and latinos want to keep white people out - they exist because white men do not want their "other" living in their communities and they have fought vigorously to keep it that way. I recommend we all take the opportunity to walk in each other's shoes. Fortunately some white men have and were SHOCKED that America is not what they think it is and that white male privilege is not a theory, but a reality that must be attended to so that we all get a square deal and the opportunity to fully contribute to our collective well-being.
This is as ignorant, and intentionally so, a set of remarks as I have read anywhere on this topic. There certainly is no "science" here. Science would be forced to concede that "color of skin" being anything other than white, has long been the rule and pretty much remains so. Science cannot comprehend that whites with less skill and qualification have always had the advantage of superior candidates whose skin was not white nor whose gender was male.
A far more enlightened and scientific approach to affirmative action can be found below in the post by Sean Gardner. Indeed, the color quotient has not really changed at all. The assumption that the white male is being discriminated against simply does not fit with the reality. The historical fact that white males have conspired to deny employment and education to Black, Brown, Red and Yellow citizens has been documented time and again.
How many letters have you written to your elected reps complaining about being discriminated against?
The government tells you who you can hate. It is a crime to hate women, ethnic minorities, non-heterosexuals, and religious people. It is not a crime to hate white men. I love you, Big Sister.
Who oppresses white men? I'm genuinely curious.
I know you won't be able to answer, so let me just say that you are the perfect example of what Mr. Hutchinson is talking about. Women, minorities and gays ARE oppressed and DO face discrimination on a daily basis and when they fight for equal opportunity and for more protection from hate crimes, people like you pretend like equal rights and protection for them is an affront to white men.
ummm... other white men perhaps?
Here's how I look at it. To be a racist, you must have power over an entire other race. So it's laughable that minorities who are still disenfranchised are being called racist.
You don't need power over anything to be a racist. You need to a bigot based on race. That's it. That can be anyone.
Check out a dictionary friend. The definition of racism is a race using its power to keep another race in an oppressed state. There's a difference between prejudice and racism.
BTW - the overwhelmingly majority of minorities are not prejudice. They are resentful, yes, because of the way this country has treated them, but they do not hate white people because of the color of their skin.
Racism is racism just like --it is --it. is there such a thing as reverse s-it?
One of the most ridiculous phrases ever coined and perpetuated:
“Reverse racism”
Racism is racism. White on black, black on yellow, yellow on red, whatever. It’s all the same thing.
Reverse racism? Is that like non-racism? Get over it and call it what it is, and stop trying to make something special out of it.
"Do you think members of some racial groups should get preference for government jobs so that the workforce has the same racial makeup as its community?"
.
Yes No Unsure
% % %
5/26 - 6/1/09
25 70 5
.
"Do you think members of some racial groups should get preference for jobs in private companies so that the workforce has the same racial makeup as its community?"
.
Yes No Unsure
% % %
5/26 - 6/1/09
21 74
Based on history, reality, my personal observations and life experience, I would NOT WANT AN ALL OR MOSTLY WHITE police force in a majority black/minority city. PERIOD
It is not effective and it is tantamount to having an brutal occupation force in another country. Most thinking people can agree based on wh it e attitudes that this will not work. Racist...N
"torpedo affirmative action"
Thanks Mr. Hutchinson. But you know what? Forget the lies associated with Affirmative Action: the "reverse racism" argument. Forget that crap and concentrate on the truth: WHITE WOMEN are the majority of the Affirmative Action beneficiaries. From the beginning of Affirmative Action, white women have always received more than other groups: Latinos, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Arab-Americans. Look at the facts: in Richmond, Cleveland, Charlotte (NC) and other major cities, studies have confirmed that WHITE WOMEN benefitted from "set-aside" programs more.
Moreover, white women are the majority beneficiaries of TITLE IX, a celebrated affirmative action program that was written by former Sen. Birch Bayh, a Republican, and father of Sen. Evan Bayh, who was on Pres. Obama's VP short list. Yes, TITLE IX equalized funding of women's sports programs at the nearly 120, NCAA Division I Schools. And while women in every race have benefitted from it, white women have received the most. Even Gov. Sarah Palin admittedly entered college because of...TITLE IX. In fact, TITLE IX "commodified" the WNBA.
So as "the politics of Affirmative Action" are debated, we must all remember that Affirmative Action has helped white women, and by extension, white households, and white communities. And, yes, it has put lots of white women in a position to donate to EMILYS List, NARAL, N.O.W., etc.
Where are the white women bloggers, and tv commentators who know the truth, and are ready to articulate this?
When someone is nominated to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court says that a Latin woman will more often than not come to a better conclusion than a white male, then yes they will be branded as a racist. If a white male said that "White males will more often than not come to a better conclusion than a black woman" the media would have had a field day with it. They would have immediately called for his resignation and he would have been banished from Washington. (See Trent Lott) This double standard on the left is appalling. The white, christian, male conservative in this country is the last acceptable group to openly discriminate against. I don't believe in the term "reverse racist". You are either a racist or not a racist and I do NOT believe that Sotomayor is a racist. However, there are racists in every single group. There are black racists, white racists, hispanic racists, arab racists, persian racists, jew racists, etc. I do know one thing and that is from what I have read of Sotomayor's rulings, it doesn't seem as though she let her feelings get in the way of her rulings. I also believe that there are those in our society (whites) that are so guilt ridden about how blacks were treated that they will do almost anything to try and clear their conscious. The very term "reverse racist" implies that racism only happens to minorities and that is a blatant lie.
oh really? go ahead and read some of Judge Sessions rulings and quotes, and then get back to us on what steep price he had to pay.
...and that's just one example. Sure, every so often a white person comes out with a racist statement and pays a heavy price. But how many times does that happen and no price is paid at all?? You may think you know the answer to that, but i assure you , you do not. You just havent noticed those cases where there are no consequences.
Judge Session's price was a ticket to the U.S. Senate.
Nice try, no cigar.
That is not what she said. Her specific reference was to discrimination cases. She said "hope"....
As I read her complete statement it is clear she was saying a victim of discrimination has a greater sensitivity than a non victim. Justice Alito expressed a similar comment based on his grandparents being immigrants and his judgement on immigrants. No one challenged his sensitiity to Italians or immigrants.
Alito is a caucasian.
Did she herself call them the wrong choice of words or was that the administration? From reading her speech, I found nothing wrong with her choice of words.
To me, what she said is trivial. However, the old saying 'what goes around comes around' is applicable here. For years certain minority advocates (you know who I'm talking about) have combed through the speeches of white politicians looking for any little tidbit, no matter how insignificant or seemingly harmless, from which they could pull 'the race card', attempting to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
This is merely the same thing in reverse.
What is stupid for one is stupid for all.
BTW, her 'wise Latina' comment, as it turns out, is a standard componant of her stump speech. That still doesn't make her a racist.
I wonder how many people think like I do. I have grown so tired of the right-wing lies, that I automatically assume that anything they say is a lie, until proven otherwise. Of course, there are always a few exceptions, but at the moment I can't think of any.
Good comment.
I don't even listen to them.
They have NO credibility.
Listening to them is like listening to a nail across a blackboard.
Sort of like listening to Palin.
Absolutely. Anything from the right wing is highly suspect and likely a lie. They have zero credibility with me.
they have to earn their credibility back, as far as i am concerned. not being believed at all is the price they must pay for 7+ years of lies and deceit at our expense.
The worst tools of the Republican Party and their racist "Southern Strategy" is their bold faced lies and their control of the main stream media.
You can't be serious. The MSM is controlled, paid for, and run by THE LEFT. Do you really think that the media is FOR conservatives? If you do, then I don't know where you have been for the last 30 years. While it is true that most successful talk radio shows lean to the right, that is only because the country as a whole leans right/center. The liberals had their own radio station in Air America and it quickly went bankrupt because nobody wanted to listen. The American people as a whole would rather listen to Bill OReilly than Al Franken any day. That is why his show has been #1 for a decade now. Fow news is the only station owned by a conservative. CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, New York Times, LA Times, and the Washington Post are ALL liberal mouthpieces. WAKE UP!!
Pleadthe5th is right. Everyone knows that the majority of the press is Democrat. NBC can now be considered state run. If any one doubts it, remember what President Obama said at the White House Press dinner:
"Many of you have covered me... all of you voted for me."
so tell me.....who owns those other networks and media outlets???? You claim that a conservative owns only fox news. (actually murdoch controls many many media).
But please research this and then tell us who owns those other media outlets. We'll see how liberal they are....
Do you realize the owner fo Fox , Murdock, just called POTUS Obama "dangerous"
I dont see how you can hear that "wise Latina" line and not instantly see how troubling it is and indicative of a very worrisome view on race. She is claiming her ethinic heritage somehow makes her more suited for a job. Isnt that everything we have been trying to change for the past 50 years?
Hannity just proved that President Obama was "giving a voice to the 9/11 terrorists" by quoting "a line". Of course, when you heard the entire sentence, it turned out that he was, in fact, doing the exact opposite.
I read the speech. Taken in context (and yes, that does matter) "the line" was not racist, or even a racially-motivated comment. When someone hands you a sound byte, the wise thing to do is to wonder why the phrase has been separated from its moorings. And if they insist that a few words tell the entire story, you know they are handing you "a line".
I read the speech too. The context doesnt take the sting out of that line. She is clearly implying that as a Latina, she has experiences that make her better than white males. I read an article online that switched out "latina" with white in her speech and it was chilling. In that context it would have been immediately considered hate speech. Quite the double standard.
dont jut believe what you hear. Read the entire speech and view it in the context of the audience the intended recepients. Also she did not say that she would make the best based on her ethnic background. Her expressly contained the word "hoped" based on experiences not had by the other wise.
It wasn't troubling to republicans a few years ago when she was confirmed for the Appeals court. This is just B__S....an
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