The debate about whether all people can be racist stems from different definitions of “racism.”
One camp subscribes to the standard dictionary definition: racism is “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.” There are no restrictions on which races can be the instigators and what magnitude of disdain counts as “superiority.”
Another camp thinks primarily of institutional racism and factors in a person’s power to use their racist beliefs against others. As one African-American lead character from the 2014 movie “Dear White People”
argues, “Black people can’t be racist. Prejudiced, yes, but not racist. Racism describes a system of disadvantage based on race. Black people can’t be racists since we don’t stand to benefit from such a system.”
What a convoluted way to absolve oneself of possible racist fault. Under this definition, yes, black individuals can’t be racist. The system is rigged in favor of white people, who have traditionally been in power. But the strange implication of this statement is that being called “prejudiced” isn’t as bad as being called a “racist” — although racism can manifest itself as prejudice, and though prejudice surely is not desired either. So Sam’s argument achieves the linguistic triumph of avoiding the label “racist,” but that’s about it.
This argument’s main point — that minorities can’t be racist because they have no power to act on such antagonism — is also reductive.
We shouldn’t have to take stock of each other’s race and relative power in society before making a judgment on an act itself. We shouldn’t have to condone prejudice or discrimination against anyone, for any reason.
Racism is individual, not just institutional. As individuals, we all have the power to hurt one another. However, though power dynamics of race in our society shouldn’t absolve some races from the ability to be racist, they should affect how we determine degrees of racism. I’d argue that, on average, a racist comment would cause a white person less harm or fear than it would cause a black person. I’m not sure how exactly one could measure that, but white people have it easier in America, and that shouldn’t be a controversial statement.