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Showing Original Post only (View all)No, racism and sexism don't "go both ways" [View all]
Too often, I hear people - inevitably white people, and very often white men - assert that racism and/or sexism "goes both ways." IOW, that black people and other persons of color can be racist against whites, or that women can be sexist against men.
The reality is: Racism is intimately tied with white supremacy. Similarly, sexism, misogyny, and patriarchy go hand-in-hand. This strategy of false equivalence is at best, a naive understanding of the way things are, that we really are all treated equally in practice. At worst, this is merely a way of deflecting responsibility for racism and sexism onto the actually oppressed groups.
Mere anger or personal prejudice against another group isn't sufficient for racism or sexism. There has to be a dynamic of unequal power relations for it to qualify. I know that's not a popular thing to say among my fellow white men, because it implicates them (us) in terms of responsibility. But, that has to be said.
As an illustration, imagine if the LGBTQ community was accused of discriminating against straight people - wait, you don't have to imagine that. That's the Christian Right. Good company to be in, then!