msicar

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i put this here because it is kind of a scary thing to talk about and i am hoping for more understanding than arguing. so i ask that people overcome the common impulse to respond to the first couple of paragraphs thinking they know what comes next.

there is no such thing as reverse racism.

racism cannot be practised by oppressed people. by definition racism requires institutional and societal approval and support. but I have heard of one instance of hijacking of anti-discrimination policies to oppress a white person, and I had a chilling experience at work that made me understand this type of event.
where i work, on the evening shift, there are mostly black people and to some extent i am recognized as one of them.
but my work ethic is so different it creates problems, and last night both this and the above were highlighted for me.
that shift used to have a white supervisor. they complained about her and got rid of her (though i doubt they were the only ones who complained). but now there is an opening and i was encouraged to consider applying.
these people are scary. i was asked to stay late and told there was no one to do the next evaluation. it wasn’t true. it was because no one wanted to ask these women to do it. so it got later and later and i asked to leave and it was ok. except there was more to do on the case. none of these women had done an evaluation and they were asked to check in with the client i had seen, who had changed her mind about staying in our respite program.

i was supposed to leave at 5pm and at this point it was 9pm and i had been working 8.5 hours with no break and other stupid things like having to do an evaluation for someone who had been waiting 5 hours because my coworker did not want to go out on a mobile eval. duh, that is what we are hired for, woman! the staff at the school were upset that they had to wait that long and rightfully so because we are supposed to get there within an hour. and they upgraded and ruined all the computers - margins off, policies changed, files missing.

these women first refused to take the client home to get belongings, then refused to talk with her when she changed her mind. they tried to make me do it and i simply said no. if it is time for me to leave then the policy is that i pass the case to someone else. except in this case everyone refused, including one woman who wasn’t doing anything but chatting with others and on the phone.

these women would (psychologically) murder anyone who did not let them do what they want to do. that is what the last supervisor did. and i could see some unsuspecting white person going in and being accused of all sorts of things, because this is what these women do when there is no supervisor onsite. it probably is true that the white people get more perks and more opportunities, but that doesn’t automatically make anyone racist. most people are blind to this type of behavior, which is based on referent power. referent power simply means that socially you have more influence over people who look like you. so you become friends with the supervisor, who trusts you more and gives you more responsibility based on that and you move up. most diversity theorists ignore this aspect of power because the coercive types are more compelling.

enough intellectualizing.
even i have had the experience of being accused of racism because i did not give someone what they wanted. just wondered what others thought.

I'm not going to discount your points about racism.

But...I think that sort of thing can occur even when everyone is the same color. People tend not to like newcomers, and people who don't feel they should have to work to earn their paycheck (I've encountered a lot of those at my workplace) resent anyone who tries to make them do an honest days work. They also dislike anyone who really does work, even though they will take advantage of and shaft off their work onto that person, because it makes them look bad.

I'm still thinking about reverse discrimination though...whether or not it exists. I don't think it does in the same sense that most white people talk about...but I have been discrimated against by groups we think of as minorities.

I grew up in inner city Chicago. There were only 2 other white girls in my class, and they didn't like me because I was an aspie nerd. The hispanic girls made fun of me because I wasn't all white. I wanted desperately to be friends with the black girls, but I wasn't part of their group, and they had a style and rhythmn that I clearly lacked. The only asian girl in one school wanted nothing to do with me, either, because I was part white. My sister could pass for hispanic; she did fine and was very popular. I have seen white teachers be blatantly unfair against the black kids, and black teachers who were unfair, too. From what I've seen, people group together by category and tend to treat those outside their group differently. Actually, I've seen animals do this, too... When the color is all the same, they just find other criteria, such as social standing, for the groups.

maybe there isn't reverse racism, but i believe anyone can be prejudice and then discriminate because of those prejudices.

i think too that prejudice has a lot to do with economics as well. regardless of skin color, the poor seem to be discriminated against. i have straddled the poverty line all my adult life. when people think i'm just a poor person i normally get treated like dirt--the typical poor white trash attitude. when people know that i'm college educated or i'm a published author, then they treat me differently because i believe they automatically believe i make more money.

i can't remember everything about this show, but i believe it was bryant gumble and he couldn't understand that poor whites are discriminated against and can face the same challenges as african-americans. at the time i worked at one of poorest schools in the state. we weren't in the inner city, in fact we were just the opposite--extremely rural. and to my knowledge at the time there were no kids of any color other than caucasian. i wanted so much to take him around the school i worked at and show him the kids and the conditions they had to live in.

maybe i'm rambling. i don't know. i hate all forms of prejudice--whether it's racial or otherwise.
april