Why So-Called “Reverse Racism” is Sometimes Justifiable

Not all Prejudice is Bigotry

Introduction: “How can a privileged white guy say anything important or accurate about Black experience?”

My writing about racial issues is just a form of literary criticism. I study what lots of different black writers say, and try to see some patterns in it. I draw the line at people like Candace Owens, whom I think is just saying what she thinks white people want to hear. But I try to read as many different honest opinions as I can. This is sort of like relying on voters to decide what the people want, even though most people don’t vote. There are obvious limits to the method, but it’s also the only method we’ve got. I’m also reminded of the fact that there are a lot of physicists who never go near a laboratory, but do important work by thinking about what other physicists have directly experienced and confirmed. My hope is that by thinking about the works of black writers who have experienced racism, and finding patterns in what they have experienced, I may be able to contribute something worthwhile.

One important disanalogy with the voting example is that I don’t give each person only one vote. I rely much more on the people who are good writers. That includes, among many others, Laura M. Quainoo, Rebecca Stevens A., Super Mrs. C., Andrea Coleman , Thomas St Thomas , Jeremy Helligar, Steve QJ, G Correia, Melissa Smith, Marlon Weems, William Spivey, Marley K. Johnny Silvercloud, and Jaron Mays. If you read any of these writers, you know that they are definitely not a monolith. I assume that if most of them agree on something, there probably is something like a consensus on this point. But I don’t need a consensus if any one writer is skillful enough to walk me through some part of their life and briefly experience a simulacrum of the racism myself.

And now on to the main topic:

In my previous essay, So-called “reverse racism“ is a thing (But it’s a very different thing), I made distinctions of decreasing moral heinousness between racism, bigotry, and prejudice. Racism is the worst, for it combines the unfair and inaccurate prejudices called bigotry with a brutalizing and exploitative social structure. I pointed out that most people who reject the concept of reverse racism acknowledge that black people are often bigoted against white people. I gave a few…