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Can Black People be Racist?

SLPCCC

Active Member
Also, being prejudice is not the same as being racist. A person can be prejudice even if he is not a racist but a person can’t be referred to as racist if he is not prejudice. There are many people here in the USA who are prejudice against blacks but are not racist and many blacks who are prejudice against others but are not racist.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Got it. I think I understand the argument now. When they say that blacks cannot be racist, what they really mean is that they cannot engage in institutional racism defined by Merriam-Webster where it states of racism:

" A political or social system founded on racism."

This political and social system renders black people the inability to oppress white people in the way that they are oppressed; therefore, from this definition, some conclude that blacks cannot be racist. I can't agree with this because they are only taking a section of the definition and ignoring the rest.
I'm a terrible person. At work, I'll chat up customers about all sorts
of things....religion, politics, race, music, food, etc. I waste huge
amounts of time. (Whooda thunk it, eh?)
I recall a conversation with a tenant about who has the power.
She is a black gal, & thought white folk had all of it. I asked her
what her party is..."Democrat". We discussed how many times
her party won the presidency & other elections. I explained that
I vote Libertarian 90% of the time, but my party never wins.
Her vote put people in office about half the time. Mine....as now,
I am politically useless.
She re-thought that idea that power was based solely on race.
 

SLPCCC

Active Member
But there are people who assert that any overt expression of anti-racism is itself an expression of racism.

Do you mean like reverse racism?

Def: Reverse racism or reverse discrimination is the concept that affirmative action and similar color-conscious programs for redressing racial inequality are a form of anti-white racism. The concept is often associated with conservative social movements and the belief that social and economic gains by black people in...
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Do you mean like reverse racism?

Def: Reverse racism or reverse discrimination is the concept that affirmative action and similar color-conscious programs for redressing racial inequality are a form of anti-white racism. The concept is often associated with conservative social movements and the belief that social and economic gains by black people in...
Reversing the damage caused by institutional racism (affirmative action) is not racism. And here is why: the term "racism" is a shorthand term referring to "racially based bigotry". And bigotry is by definition both elitist and exclusive, and intolerant of anything that is not elitist and exclusive to itself. Such that by it's own definition, then, anything that is not itself, is itself. And that's clearly an incoherent proposition.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Also, being prejudice is not the same as being racist. A person can be prejudice even if he is not a racist but a person can’t be referred to as racist if he is not prejudice. There are many people here in the USA who are prejudice against blacks but are not racist and many blacks who are prejudice against others but are not racist.
The term "racist" is shorthand for "racially based prejudice" (or bigotry). We can be prejudiced against other things besides race, and therefor not be "racist". But if we are prejudiced against people based on their race, we are "racist".
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
We all know that white people can be racist but can some black people also be racist. I remember reading somewhere that back people cannot be racist. Is this true? Is this only one-sided?
Ive known black people who are racist, including some who were open about it.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Also, being prejudice is not the same as being racist.
Racism is defined as prejudice that is based on race. Every racist is prejudice, but not every person with a prejudice is racist. Such as, prejudice against women is called misogyny. Or misamdry when it's men. Prejudice against race is racism. To be racist it to hold prejudices against the ethnicity of an individual or group.
 

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
Do you mean like reverse racism?
I don't think this exists.
Racism is racism, it doesn't matter who or why. If the rules are different, or someone's perception of another individual are different, or whatever, (based on race) it's racism.

Racist policies, like Affirmative Action, have been used to combat the generations old effects of racist policies. But it's still racism.
Tom
 

Ponder This

Well-Known Member
If a "race" refer to a specific group of people from a given area, like Africa, Asia, European etc. then everyone can be racist towards each other. It obviously just happens to be that the white people of Europe that managed to enslave those around them first, that being people from Africa or Native Americans etc.. And given the time they lived in they felt that they could treated others as sub humans.

Obviously it seems that racism when used in the media tends to mean one thing. Which is that whenever the word is used and no context is used, 99.9% of all people will probably assume that the racist is white and the person being violated is black.

Also I think given the history of slavery etc. that it is somewhat a tabu to speak of black people as being racists against white people.

Some Asian people for instant is also, as far as I know, fairly racist towards black people as well.

star-wars-china-poster-controversy.jpg


This is the star wars poster from China.... why is one specific character missing? (Right side)

At least in my opinion that is pretty crazy, so racism goes in all directions.

If you believe everyone is racist, then you will see racism everywhere you go.
 

SLPCCC

Active Member
I think a person can be prejudice against another person or group of people due to ignorance and not be racist. In other words, they may have preconceived beliefs of a group but not believe that the people are inferior. Whereas when a person who is prejudice, caused by racism, is ignorant of the group and also believes that that group is inferior is racist.

For example, I had a friend who was prejudice of a group because he didn't like their culture. He felt that they were too loud, rude, and noisy. He didn't think that we were superior to them. He was just ignorant to the fact that not all of those people were what he viewed them to be.

Difference-Between-Racism-and-Prejudice-infographic.jpg
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
We all know that white people can be racist but can some black people also be racist. I remember reading somewhere that back people cannot be racist. Is this true? Is this only one-sided?

Of course. There's black racists out there who absolutely hates whites.
 

HonestJoe

Well-Known Member
I think a person can be prejudice against another person or group of people due to ignorance and not be racist. In other words, they may have preconceived beliefs of a group but not believe that the people are inferior.
If someone believes a racial group has a specific characteristic and is prejudiced against that racial group as a result, how could that be anything other than seeing them as inferior in some way? If they didn't think the characteristic made members of the racial group inferior in some way, why would they be prejudiced against people of that race because of it?

For example, I had a friend who was prejudice of a group because he didn't like their culture.
Well that wouldn't be racism by definition - culture is race. If he assumed anyone of the same race shared that culture and thought less of them as a result that, would be racism.
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
white farmers are being killed here in South Africa because some black people say that they took their land.
That's not way they're being killed. It's mostly due to robberies and some probably have to do with angry farm workers getting back at their boss.
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
Racist policies, like Affirmative Action, have been used to combat the generations old effects of racist policies. But it's still racism.
It's mostly white women who benefit from it. White men benefit from it, as well. But many of you love to whine about how it's unfair, when it doesn't disadvantage white people at all. There's still huge racial disparities across job fields and academia. But poor oppressed white people. :rolleyes:

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11682950/fisher-supreme-court-white-women-affirmative-action
 

gnomon

Well-Known Member
We all know that white people can be racist but can some black people also be racist. I remember reading somewhere that back people cannot be racist. Is this true? Is this only one-sided?

Everybody can be racist.

I cannot believe anyone of a sound mind would believe otherwise.
 

Tambourine

Well-Known Member
We all know that white people can be racist but can some black people also be racist. I remember reading somewhere that back people cannot be racist. Is this true? Is this only one-sided?
That depends on what you mean by "racism" and "black people".

Racism has many forms and not all of them would be applicable to an oppressed minority such as African Americans. Structural and institutional racism, in particular, are premised on the ruling class building racist discrimination into the structures of power to allow the perpetration racial oppression even by ostensibly "not racist" people.

On the other hand, the majority of black people live in countries where they are the majority both numerically and in terms of political dominance. In that case, they could certainly employ the institutional tools of racism as well.

Further, one can be both victim of racism and commit racist acts oneself. People in Africa are still the victim of the structural racism of the world order that was established by white colonialists, even if the various African ethnicities themselves engage in racist oppression against minorities in their own countries.
 
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